Lit Major Shoots Zombies
by Space Viking
Summary: In the anticipated sequel to "Lit Major Shoots Lightning," American exchange student Christen "Chris" Warden continues her adventures in the Secret World. After a one-week crash course in mastering her new powers, she's sent to discover what evil has overtaken Kingsmouth, a New England town that suddenly dropped off the map.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

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><p><em><strong>Prologue<strong>_

_Previously, in "Lit Major Shoots Lightning"..._

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><p>My name is Christen Warden, but I prefer "Chris."<p>

I'm an American English literature major from a small community college in Colorado, studying abroad for a semester in London—or I _was_ until a couple weeks ago. It sounds crazy when I say it, but I swallowed a bee one night and began manifesting supernatural powers. These weren't bee-themed powers like in comic books; these were destructive powers like fire, wind, and lightning. I never wanted them and I didn't know how to control them at all. I destroyed my apartment, scared off my roommate and her boyfriend, and pretty much ruined my life all within the course of a week.

That was when I found the Templars, or rather, they found me. They weren't the Knights Templar from history: these Templars were a modern-day secret organization dedicated to hunting monsters the rest of us only meet in nightmares, if even there. The Templars knew about my "bee problem" and they weren't afraid. They invited me to their headquarters in Ealdwic, a secret part of London, and they offered me a deal: join their crusade against monsters and evil, and they would teach me how to use and control my powers safely. I accepted.

They taught me how to channel my magic, my _anima_, using empty guns, firing magic instead of bullets. I'm still getting used to the fact that my shots can do things normal gunshots can't—like going exactly where I want them, exploding inside things, and giving me the ability to leach health off of targets—but I'm in control of my powers. For the first time since I got them, I'm not a danger to myself or others…unless I mean to be. I can be plenty dangerous then.

The Templars even provided me with a place to stay, new clothes and replacements for some of the things I'd lost. They even gave me a specialized cell phone to let me talk to my family without being traced by the Illuminati—who are apparently well-established in America and a pretty raunchy crowd. They gave me permission to confide in my conspiracy-theory-enthusiast little brother, Micah, and I have. They've more than upheld their end of the bargain.

Now it's time for me to uphold mine…

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> The second story of the _Lit Major_ series is finally here!

This is just a quick reminder of the events of _Lit Major Shoots Lightning_, since it's been a while. This story's beginning is set immediately after the close of the last one.


	2. Assignment

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

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><p><strong><em>Assignment<em>**

_Wednesday, September 25, 3:14PM  
>Temple Hall, Ealdwic, London<em>

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><p>"Come in and sit down," Richard Sonnac directs, guiding me into his richly-furnished office and closing the door behind us. I pick out my favorite chair, a slightly overstuffed leather one, while he sits down across from me behind the desk and fold his hands. "The time has come to discuss the details of your upcoming excursion to the Colonies, or at least, what details we know." He gives a slight frown and his expression turns serious. "I know you're concerned for your family and would probably like to see them again, but we have no indication that they are in danger, and we have more pressing matters to attend to. I'm afraid I must insist that this trip be strictly business, not pleasure."<p>

"I understand, sir," I say automatically.

That brings a slight smile. "Please, Chris, Sonnac will do. I know the Brigadier likes to keep things formal in training, but I prefer a more personable style of communication."

I smile back at him. "Of course," I say, managing to leave off the _sir_, but only just. Then the conversation turns to more serious matters as both our smiles fade. "You said before that you're sending me to the New England coast? To an island?"

"Solomon Island." He nods soberly. "Recently, a small island community off the New England coast dropped off the map. The official story was a storm at first, and now it's a training exercise by the US Department of Defense…but you can disregard all the tiresome government cover-ups. There are dark forces at play."

"What kind of dark forces?" I ask, hoping it'll be an answer less frightening than the Rakshasa chained in the training room or the Filth-tainted zombies from the weird dream I had.

"If we knew that, we wouldn't have to send you," says Sonnac. "It could be any number of things. The list is far too extensive to prepare you for all the possibilities, and with the way strange events have been accelerating across the globe…well, it could be anything."

I swallow and nod, reminding myself that I spent the last week in intensive training for just this. "What do we know about the island?"

"A good deal, but none of it very helpful," says Sonnac, rising and beginning to pace. "The major town is Kingsmouth, population just under two thousand. Major industries are fishing, mining, and tourism. They have a website, if that helps, but it probably won't."

"I'll have Micah look it up," I say.

He nods. "That is all we know about the Island's present, or what _was_ its present up until three days ago. What we know about their past is far more concerning." He turns toward me. "Solomon Island is a rock with infamy. In centuries of yore, it was trafficked by the Illuminati, before they joined the rush to New York. As you're aware we have…history with the Illuminati, acrimonious history. Of course, under the flag of truce we have spat and made up, and now we are the closest of enemies: all smiles above the table, and drawn knives beneath it."

"Sounds like going into Solomon Island will be like kicking over a hornet's nest, then," I say, frowning. "Will we risk war if we go there?"

"In force, with as little knowledge and justification as we have right now? We might," he says. "But we cannot stand idly by. The Illuminati are reckless and cannot be relied upon to clean up their own messes. We must find the root of whatever doom has come to Solomon Island. That is your assignment."

"A scouting mission?" I say. I think I can handle that. I don't feel well enough trained to join the Templar guards, but poking around on an island I could probably handle.

"Exactly," says Sonnac. "You are strictly to observe and report. Do not engage the Illuminati, and do not try to be a hero." He looks me in the eye. "Let me stress: this is not a rescue operation. You are not the army of the Templars, and even if you were, our goal is the salvation of _all_ mankind, not on a case-by-case basis."

I straighten a little in my chair. "Mankind is made up of individuals though: it's a case-by-case basis or nothing," I say.

"Not when you're gambling with the entire population of the world—and with disasters the scale of the Tokyo Incident, we may well be," Sonnac says. "You go to the island. You observe and report back to us. There may be survivors—godwilling there are—, and you can help them as you carry out your mission, but understand that you are not to announce to anyone that you've been chosen to deliver them from evil. Joan of Arc did, and look where that got her."

I open my mouth to point out that this isn't quite what happened to Joan of Arc, then it occurs to me that I heard of her before I learned about the existence of the Templars and the Secret World, and that there's a real possibility that I didn't hear the truth about her at all. I close my mouth again and nod.

"I understand that all this may stick in your throat, but…well, halos are fading all over town now that so much more is at stake," Sonnac finishes, returning to his own side of the mahogany desk.

"Hmph, halos indeed," says a deep voice behind me.

I jump out of my chair, startled to find Brigadier Lethe, my trainer, standing in the doorway. For a large man with a brace on one leg, he can move surprisingly silently.

He gives up all pretense of stealth now, though and marches into the room, holding an AK-47 with a grenade launcher under the barrel in his massive hands. For a moment, the scowl on his face and the weapon in his hands make me fear the worst and I instinctively reach for my concealed holster inside my jacket—only to realize that of course it isn't there and neither is my handgun. State-issued concealed-carry permits aren't internationally recognized, after all.

If the Brigadier sees my reaction, he ignores it. A moment later, he defuses my fears anyway. He pulls back the bolt on the rifle and removes the magazine, revealing that both it and the chamber are empty, then he thrusts the gun into my hands. "Like I told you, girl, when you're done with your training, you get to keep it." He slams a second empty magazine down on the desk hard enough to scratch the mahogany. Sonnac winces and the Brigadier glares at him.

"One bloody week," the Brigadier says to Sonnac. "Christ Almighty, you didn't even give me _that_! I'm not a bloody miracle worker, Sonnac. You send her out there with this little training and her blood is on your hands!"

"I believe Miss Warden has demonstrated she is quite capable of taking care of herself, Mr. Lethe," Sonnac replies with a calm I wish I could feel. "We have few alternatives, and she _is_ a Bee, so—"

"That doesn't make her bloody invincible!" Lethe interrupts. "She's not an immortal."

"What does this have to do with how I got my powers?" I ask, stepping cautiously toward the men.

Sonnac turns to me. "I'm sure you've heard the term from your brother by now. It's not very difficult to look up. The means by which you obtained your powers makes you part of a group of gifted individuals with certain common traits, known informally as _Bees_." He glances at Brigadier Lethe, who is still glaring at him. "One of those traits is that when your body is physically exhausted, to the point when an ordinary human would die, you are carried away in _anima_ form to one of the numerous intersections of ley lines around the globe which form springs of magical energy—_anima_ wells if you will. There your body can be healed and restored, effectively resurrected without any permanent harm. I'm told some Bees even use it as a speedy mode of transit, though I cannot condone such a practice."

"So I can't die?" I ask, trying to take it all in.

"Not quite so," Sonnac corrects. "As the Brigadier pointed out, you are not immortal, nor are you invulnerable. That being said, killing a Bee is a thing not easily done, which is one reason why you are an ideal scout in this situation." He looks back to Lethe. "The other reason being that our manpower and resources have been stretched to their limits and beyond. Quite simply, we have no one else to spare."

"Then for Christ's sake wait for another agent to be available," Lethe says. His mask of anger slips for a moment and I see something else…concern, sorrow. I don't know whether to be shocked or touched.

"We cannot wait, Lethe," says Sonnac. "The mission will not wait. Right now two thousand people are missing, possibly dead, and for all we know they could be the first of millions or even billions of lives lost to whatever darkness has swallowed this island. We cannot wait. The world cannot afford the delay."

"I'll go," I say. "An order's an order, and it's important work. I know the risks, and I'll face them myself."

Lethe shakes his head. "You don't know the risks, girl. You don't know anything about the world out there." He turns then and stalks toward the door, muttering, "Pray you never do, girl, pray you never do." Then he slams the door behind him and is gone.

Sonnac turns to me. "I'm sorry you had to witness that," he says. "The Brigadier is very protective of his recruits, and with good reason. Ours is a dangerous world."

"I'm prepared to face the danger," I say. After all, I joined the Templars not only to be able to tame my powers but to be able to put them to a good use. Saving a small town of 2,000 people, or at the least finding out what happened to them, seems like a good start.

"As much as I commend your enthusiasm, Lethe is right. You are not quite ready, but you can be made ready enough in a short time." He steps around the desk and removes a decorative wooden box from it. He hands it to me. "For you, Chris, to help you in your first mission."

I carefully set down the assault rifle and open the box to find two small semi-automatic pistols inside, along with shoulder holsters for each of them and a fitted white shirt. I recognize the make of the guns immediately. "These are my guns!" I exclaim. "XD-S .45's!" They're the same kind my father got me for concealed carry—not a fun shooting gun, but one I can keep concealed on my person easily enough and hopefully use to save my life in a pinch.

"I took the liberty of reviewing your information and procuring these for you: including shoulder holsters for carrying under a coat or jacket, and an undershirt with built-in holster pockets for more active occasions," Sonnac explained. "I thought you could use a more discrete alternative to toting around a large weapon that screams _I am armed and dangerous_ to anyone who happens by. Lethe told me your pistol work was very impressive."

I frown. "He also said I'd need to learn to shoot two guns at the same time to do anything to a real monster. I still don't think I can do that." I know the inaccuracy of my shots and the recoil I feel is all in my mind, because I'm not firing real bullets and my magic simply does what I tell it to. Still it's hard to convince myself _not_ to expect terrible results if I tried to fire two of these guns at the same time, since I remember my own pocket .45 kicked like a moose.

"You will learn in time," Sonnac assures me. "With practice, your control of your magic grows stronger. Look how far you've come since you began your training here. In the field, you'll grow much faster, and by the time you return to us, you may be able to do things not even we knew were possible." He smiles, then lays his hands on the box, closing it again. "That's not all I'm giving you, though. The box itself is a gift." He turns the key in the front, then opens the box again. Now it's empty.

"A secret compartment?" I ask, amazed. The box had been almost full a moment before, and it's no bigger than a shoe box.

"Nothing so mundane," says Sonnac. "This is an arcane device commonly referred to as a send-box. They come in pairs." He moves to his mantelpiece, where an identical wooden box sits. "And this is its mate. Observe." He opens the lid of the other box. Inside, I catch sight of my pistols and the straps of the shoulder holsters. "Close the lid, turn the key, and whatever was in one box is now in the other." As he speaks, he demonstrates, closing the lid on the other box and turning its key like he did my own.

He then motions for me to open my box and I do…and find the pistols and the rest of my new gear arranged inside as before. "Amazing!" I say.

"It is a time-tested and very practical way for us to send and receive materials from our agents in the field," says Sonnac. "Your phone will be our main point of contact, as it is much more efficient, but samples and material aid can be sent securely by box."

"Thank you," I say, holding the box close.

"That's not all," says Sonnac. He goes behind his desk and opens a small drawer. "You will need these as well." He gestures to the drawer's contents and I come over to watch as he removes the items one by one and explains their purpose.

"This is a spellbook," he says, removing a pocket-sized leather journal from the drawer, carefully handling it with a handkerchief, not touching it directly. "It will bind to the first person who touches it, which should be you."

He hands it to me and I take it cautiously, expecting a shock or something, but I don't feel anything. I flip through the pages and find that all of them are blank. "It's empty," I say.

"Give it a minute to adjust to you, and the first few pages will fill up with descriptions of all the spells you know. New spells will be added as you learn them, and the book can also identify most arcane substances on contact, which is why it is very important to store it in a safe, dry place." He hands me a small ziplock bag and I seal the book inside before tucking it into my jacket pocket.

"The rest of these are various talismans. They are enchanted items that can be used to amplify your _anima_, making you a stronger survivor, healer, or warrior," he explains, gesturing to the other contents of the drawer. "There are head talismans, major talismans, and minor talismans. The distinction is of mostly academic concern, except on one point. Only one head talisman and three of any other kind of talisman may affect a person at any time. These seven items are the normal starting talismans of an agent in the field, but you may find something more suitable in your travels, or we may be able to send you better equipment once we know more about your situation. If you concentrate, you can probably sense their magic."

I squint my eyes and stare at the objects: a cup of ashes, a little diamond ring, a jeweled pendant, a thick brass bracelet, a fragment of bone, a black leather belt, and a small pair of dice. They seem pretty ordinary. I don't even think the jewels are real stones. However, as I concentrate on them, I sense something…power: heard, not seen, buzzing around the objects like the hum of an overhead line…like the drone of a hive of bees.

"Normally, these are given with more decorum," says Sonnac, bringing me back to reality. "However, as our time is short, I will give them to you now." He dips a thumb into the ashes. "I'll need to impose these on your forehead," he says, motioning for me to push back my bangs. I do so and he draws a cross on my forehead with the ashes. I remember hearing that a lot of churches do this for Palm Sunday (though not any church I've ever been to). I never imagined it could have real protective powers, but I can feel the power buzzing through me after he applies them.

Sonnac takes the ring next. "Hold out your right hand," he instructs, and slips the little band around my ring finger. I feel stronger as a result. He places the thick band, the brass bracer, around my left wrist. It looks tacky there, so I cover it up with the sleeve of my black-and-white striped hoodie. Even so, it makes me feel protected. Sonnac goes around behind me and while I hold back my hair he fastens the slim chain of the jeweled pendant around my neck. Again, the feeling of power increases.

By the time he's had me place the dice in my right pocket, the bone in my left, and buckle the black leather belt around my waist, I feel like I'm ready to take on the world. I can't help but grin as the air around me fairly hums with power.

Then, I remember my apartment. I remember the lightning, wind, and fire—the unfathomable power I wielded before my training, and its ruinous results. My grin fades. I almost want to take all the talismans off and give them back to Sonnac, or throw them into the nearest gutter. I do not feel ready for this kind of power. I do not know if I ever will be, but at the same time, I know I will need it—along with all my other gear and training—if I'm to have any chance against whatever strange forces have laid claim to Solomon Island.

Sonnac senses the change in my mood and nods his approval. No words are needed. This is a sobering enterprise. "Your travel arrangements have already been made with the Ealdwic Underground," he tells me. "Leave as soon as you can. More lives are counting on you than you know."

"Yes, sir," I say. I slowly collect my things from my chair, slinging the rifle over my shoulder and tucking the spare magazine (which I suppose is just there for appearances—I don't really need to reload, since I'm firing magic) into the pocket of my jacket. Then I pick up the send box, careful to keep it closed without turning the key. I turn to Sonnac, who has already resumed work at his desk. "How will I get to Solomon Island from the Underground?" I ask. If the Templars have a secret trans-Atlantic subway line, this will be the first I've heard of it.

Sonnac allows himself a small smile. "By something far better and simpler than conventional means," he says mysteriously. "The Conductor will explain everything. Be on your guard out there, and I will be in touch."

I nod, realizing this is the only explanation I'll get out of him. Then I turn and leave, heading back to my flat at the Redcrosse Circus.

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> The first half of this conversation is based on the cutscene with Sonnac that gives the Templar introduction to Solomon Island. Of course, it's been modified somewhat in order to make it a dialogue, since the player character in TSW is a heroic mute, apparently. The second is my invention. I can imagine Lethe getting angry about having his recruit thrown into the field so quickly, and _someone_ had to point out that this was rather unusual. The talismans are given in the game without any accompanying story: simply appearing in one's inventory inside the Crucible (or applicable training area, depending on your faction). This was my attempt to work them into the story.

The send-box is also my invention, and an explanation for how you can receive rewards for quests. We'll see how it plays out as a plot device. The pistols inside are real guns designed for concealed carry, and while they are very good for what they're designed to do the tiny, light frame and large caliber combine to make them an uncomfortable weapon to fire, in my own experience. They do not appear in the game, but a pair of nameless starter pistols are one of the possible rewards for completing Tier 1 of the "Dawning of an Endless Night" story mission.


	3. Preliminary Research

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

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><p><strong><em>Preliminary Research<em>**

_Wednesday, September 25, 4:35PM  
>Redcrosse Circus Apartments, Ealdwic, London<em>

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><p>As soon as I reach my flat and set everything down on the overcrowded coffee table, I pull out my phone and press speed-dial 1. The phone rings and rings, then goes to voicemail. I hear Dad's recorded voice: "You've reached the home of the Wardens, but we can't answer the phone just now. Please leave a message and—"<p>

I hang up. I glance at my watch, then remember there's a six hour difference between London and Colorado, where my family lives. There it's only 10 o'clock, and my brother is at school and my Dad is at work. I hesitate for a moment, then pull Micah's number up in my contacts and hit "call." The phone rings and to my surprise I immediately get an answer.

"Hey, Chris! Is this important, because I'm about to miss my computer science class," says Micah, sounding winded.

"It is," I say. I hate imposing, but lives are at stake, including my own. "I need you to look up Kingsmouth. It's a town on Solomon Island—"

"Of the coast of Maine, yeah, I know about it," he says. "It's been in the news, quarantined for some sort of flu outbreak, though that's only the latest story."

"I hadn't heard about that," I admit. It wasn't one of the coverups Sonnac mentioned.

"Don't you watch the news?" Micah asks.

"I've been kind of busy," I say. "Training and such."

"Okay, fair enough," he says. "So, what do you need to know? I'll try to look it up after school."

"I need to know everything you can find out. I'm going there now," I say. "There's something more going on. The whole island's dropped off the map and no one knows why, though the Templars suspect Illuminati involvement. They're sending me to investigate."

"They're sending you?" A pause. "Wow, that's sudden."

"Two thousand lives are at stake, possibly more," I point out. "We can't wait around on this one."

"I'll look up the information while I'm in class," Micah says. "I doubt the teacher will notice. I'll call you back next passing period to let you know what I find."

I wish I could tell him not to do this. I don't want my little brother flunking out of school because of me, but too much is at stake for me to refuse his help or give him more time. "Just don't get caught," I say instead.

"Yeah, don't worry about _me_, sis. You take care of yourself!"

"Thanks," I say. "I will." I wait a moment for his reply then look at my phone to see he has hung up. I guess he's already rushing off to his computer class. I bite my lip and tuck my phone away. Then I start packing.

The first thing I do is strap on the shoulder holsters under my hoodie. Then, I try to sort out where I'm going to carry my send box. It soon becomes clear I'll have to leave something behind. Going through my things I find I'll have to get rid of my laptop and most of my notebooks. I can't say I like that, but then again, I probably won't have much time to write where I'm going. I manage to save one thin notebook, but I have to take out my Bible and first aid kit to get the box to fit—and I'm not comfortable leaving either of those behind. If ever I've needed comfort, guidance, and protection from God, it's now…and as for the first aid kit, I may no longer need it but any survivors I come across might. Even after what Sonnac said about this not being a rescue mission, I can't stop thinking about the helpless people…people like I was just two week ago. I stuff my Bible into the side pocket where my laptop charger was and secure the first aid kit to one of the straps on the outside of my backpack (which thankfully mine has a lot of). That leaves only a little room for clothes, enough for one spare outfit, in fact. Since my own clothes from home haven't arrived yet, I'm stuck with one of the outfits the Templars bought for me. They're a bit dressy, but they have to do. I pack one in on top of the send box and zip my backpack shut.

Just then my phone rings. I see Micah's name and answer it. "Hey, Micah," I say. "Did you find anything?"

"Yeah, I did." His voice sounds worried. "Chris, are you sure about this? This island has some serious bad history."

"I'm sure. Two thousand people are counting on me, and God only knows how many more," I say. "What did you find?"

"Well, there's website for Kingsmouth, but it's not much help. Typical touristy stuff," Micah says. "One of the locals had a blog though: _Monsters of Maine_, if that gives you any ideas. He believed there were all kinds of monsters skulking about on Solomon Island, and the scary part is he had pretty decent evidence, too."

"What exactly are we talking about?"

Micah hesitates. "I'll have to do more research, but there's Wendigos, Bigfoot, a bunch of other crazy stuff, and something he calls the Pale Men. They sound like underwater zombies and he seemed to think they were coming back to Solomon Island."

"Back?" I say. "And what's a Wendigo?"

"A big scary cannibal-thing," says Micah. "It's from Indian lore."

"Native American," I correct automatically.

"Whatever," he says. "The point is, this place sounds like it was crawling with monsters before it dropped off the map. Who _knows_ what's going on there now!"

"I'll be careful," I promise.

"You better be, sis." Micah sighs. "I've got to get to my next class. I'll look the rest of this up after school and call you back then, okay?"

"Okay," I say. "Tell Dad I love him…and I love you, too."

"I…aw, don't go all mushy on me. I love you too, sis, but I gotta go now. Bye!"

With that, he hangs up and I lower the phone. What Micah said about the Pale Men strikes me as important. If something like that really has returned to Solomon Island, that could explain why it's cut off from the outside world—and it would be bad: very, very bad. I won't know for sure until I get there, though.

I pull on my backpack and shoulder my rifle. It's time to see what travel arrangements Sonnac has waiting for me at the Ealdwic Underground.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> This chapter isn't in the game, obviously. In the game, you only have to agonize over what to keep and what to throw away when your inventory fills up with monster drops, which happens to me a lot. Funcom did make two websites for Kingsmouth, though. There's a town website, which looks very authentic at "ww w. kingsmouth.c om" and a blog on Blogger called "Monsters of Maine." The latter has some really interesting in-character information about the monsters you'll meet on Solomon Island, while the former gives details about the setting. Posts on the Kingsmouth site seem to indicate activity stopping in February, but since the foliage in the environment itself indicates early autumn, I set the disaster in September.

Chris may lose the first aid kit at some point. While some forms of healing in the game can only be used on the player, leach-based healing (which is what assault-rifles offer) can be used on anyone, so the kit should be unnecessary supposing there's something nearby she can viciously gun down...and supposing it's alright to reveal her powers.

Next up, Lit Major meets Agartha...this should be interesting...


	4. Agartha

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

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><p><strong><em>Agartha<em>**

_Wednesday, September 25, 5:45PM  
>Ealdwic, London<em>

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><p>For someone who's openly toting an assault rifle around inner-city London, I don't generate a lot of attention. The police just seem to ignore me, and the other passerby seem to follow their lead. I wonder if word has gotten around that I'm with the Templars. Funny, you'd think being part of a secret society would be more…secret, but then I suppose they do have their headquarters in a large public building surrounded with banners that practically scream <em>Templars meet here!<em> Maybe it's not such a big secret after all. I still worry about transportation, though. Unless the Templars have their own secret trans-Atlantic subway, I'll probably have to get on a public subway, train, or plane at some point—and they certainly aren't just going to let me waltz on board with an AK-47 in my arms and two pistols tucked under my jacket.

I make it to the Ealdwic Underground Station without any problem. Again, the spray-painted wooden sign hanging over the official sign seems to be more accurate, declaring the place _Ealdwych Markets_. While the exterior of the building is certainly that of a typical London subway station (though pretty outdated, compared to most), the inside is full of rickety little stalls selling all sorts of odds and ends. I spot a blond woman in the red-and-black of the Templar guard and I approach her quickly. "Excuse me, do you know where the Templar transportation is?" I ask.

She turns to me, startled. "Templar transportation?" she repeats.

"Um, yes," I say. "I'm…I'm new, but Sonnac said he'd arranged transportation for me somewhere around here…He said the Conductor would explain…"

The woman smiles. "Oh, you must mean Agartha! Well, why didn't you just say so?" She points to the stairs leading down to the platform. Most of them are shuttered and boarded up, but one of them is open and a spray-painted sign next to it says _Agartha_, with an arrow pointing down. "It's right down there," she says. "Don't worry, you can't miss it."

I heard that before about Temple Hall, and I still had to ask for plenty of directions.

I thank the woman and head down the stairs. I immediately see that this is not an ordinary subway platform. Down at the bottom, where the platform for the train should be, everything has collapsed, leaving a small open space that is—oddly—completely overgrown with thick, lush vines. I can see a golden glow in the center of it, as if welling up from the ground itself. There's no way that's normal…but then again, Sonnac did say I would be traveling by something other than conventional means.

I walk to the bottom of the stairs and look around for the Conductor, or anybody, really, but I seem to be the only person down here. Not the only living thing, though. There's a loud droning sound, and I see lots of bees darting about through the vines and looping lazily around the well of energy. I notice that a lot of them seem to be coming and going through an opening to my right. I peek around some vines and my eyes go wide. Through an opening just big enough to duck through, is a window into another world. On the other side, everything is bathed in golden light, and it looks like I'm high-up in the canopy of some kind of forest. I can see thick trees rising, surrounded by flat meandering branches the color of honeycombs. I see a bee buzz past me and fly into the membrane separating me from this place, then continue on its way on the other side. I gasp. If the bee can go through, then so can I…though what I might find on the other side…?

Then I spot a man walking on a large platform made of intersecting branches. He's wearing a uniform, a very old uniform of a conductor. This must be the man Sonnac wanted me to meet, and I'm certainly in need of some explanation! I step forward cautiously, touching the membrane, then pushing through it. One minute I'm on one side, the next I'm on the other, standing on the flat top of a honey-colored branch in the golden light that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The branch is about ten feet wide—enough that I can almost feel comfortable walking down the middle of it, despite the seemingly endless drop on either side. I slowly walk toward the man and call out to him. "Hello? Are you the Conductor?" I ask.

"Hello, yes," the man says, brushing off his uniform. He steps toward me. "How may I help you, miss?"

"Well, maybe you can tell me where I am, for starters," I say.

"Ah!" The man waves his arm grandly at our surroundings. "This is the Hollow Earth, Agartha."

"The Hollow Earth?" I repeat turning around. "Then this isn't another world?"

"Oh, no," says the Conductor. "It isn't anything unnatural, either. It may not conform to the…ah…_accepted_ theories on the Earth's consistency, but I assure you, it is very much a part of our world."

"It's hotter than London," I say, tugging at the sleeves of my jacket. "Brighter too."

"Ah, yes. You'll get used to the balmy temperature," says the Conductor. "It's for the bees, they prefer it." He says, pointing as one buzzes around his head before droning on its way. He smiles wistfully. "Their honey is remarkable, though the aftertaste—a bit like machine oil."

"It's certainly nothing like what I expected," I say, still looking around. "How is all this under Ealdwic?"

The man's lips tighten. "It's not _directly_ under Ealdwic, as such. Not directly under anything. Agartha's thoroughfares sprout from the Tree of Life itself, and connect back to the surface via portals," he says. "Time and space _bend_ in here. Why, you can cross the globe in a brisk walk! No one's entirely sure how it works…quite bedeviled the science boffins, but I'm assured they have their top men on it. Top men!" He blows out his mustache a bit, and I get the impression he doesn't have nearly the confidence in these _top men_ that he's trying to convey.

I can hardly blame him. My head spins just trying to take _in_ this place, to realize it's real. "When Sonnac said he'd arranged transportation for me, I never imagined _this_," I say.

The Conductor chuckles. "Well, I do hope you're not here for the local service, it's running somewhat tardy." He digs out a large brass pocketwatch. "By my watch it's one hundred years overdue at quarter past the hour." He clucks disapprovingly then tucks the watch away.

"Good thing I'm not taking the subway," I manage to say, thinking with half a mind that the Conductor's comment on the last time this platform was in ordinary service explains why Ealdwic Station has been turned into a bazaar. The other half of my mind is still trying to come up with some kind of measure for the size of the tree trunks spanning the room. I stop when I realize that Agartha seems big enough to swallow the Grand Canyon several times over.

Meanwhile, the Conductor begins to slowly pace around me, looking me up and down. "Judging from the cut of you, you're more of a world traveler than a subway passenger," he says. "Well, you've come to the right place. This underground realm, like the great British rail system, is the very model of efficiency. Speaking of which, here comes one of our Custodians right now."

He points to a 12-foot-tall armored giant. It took me a moment to realize it's actually a robot, an enormous man-shaped automaton that looks like it walked straight out of a steampunk story. It's all elaborate brass plates, thick pipes, and clockwork gears built into a thickset torso with arms and legs about as big around as I am. "You're custodians are giant robots?"

"Yes, well, modernization encroaches on us all…_ticket machines_, indeed," says the man. "Good for addition, I don't doubt: always with the correct change. Yet somewhat lacking in the human touch, like my thunderous companions here." He gestures to the robot, which is marching toward us along a branch.

The sound of heavy footfalls and clacking gears grows louder and I shift uncomfortably, forcefully reminded about how narrow of a platform I'm standing on, and how limited my options for escape are at the moment. "Um, should we be moving out of the way?" I ask, taking a step backward.

"Not at all," says the Conductor. "In fact, I do believe the Custodian is coming to meet you." He sees my horrified expression and pats my arm. "There, there, don't be frightened. They're not dangerous. Quite tame actually. They serve the same function as myself, in many way: greeting and orienting the travelers of this great realm. I doff my cap to them, though. For how many centuries they patrolled these stations alone, who can say? I pride myself on dedication and punctuality, but they are the original article." He stands beside me, watching the robot approach and his face grows wistful. "What faces they must have seen! Many gentlemen explorers—ladies, too—have stepped before you into Agartha's honeyed halls. That pleasant Norwegian chap, for one: Amundsen."

"Amundsen…" I turn the name over in my mind, partly to distract myself from how very, very big the robot approaching me is. "There was a Roald Amundsen who explored the poles. I remember he was mentioned in a book about Earnest Shackleton."

"The very same," the Conductor tells me. "Yes, you're in fine company, fine company indeed." His smirk turns up the end of his mustache. "I vouch a _ticket machine_ wouldn't tell you that."

The robot stops in front of us and extends its hand over my head, fist held closed, fingers down. I see a small brass orb clutched between its massive fingers and I realize it's about to drop it. "Go on, don't let it fall," the Conductor encourages me. "You'll need it." I hold out my hands and the robot let's go of the orb. It falls into my hands and I clutch it to myself.

"Mind your fingers," the Conductor warns. I feel a button under my fingers and move my hands quickly away from any possible controls. I turn the orb around and examine it. One side it's a simple sphere of engraved brass. On one face, though, there's a circular opening to an interior pulsating with blue light. It has only a single button on the side that must be how it's activated…whatever it does.

"Thank you," the Conductor says to the robot, giving it a small salute, at which it slowly turns itself around and heads back the way it came, leaving the two of us alone. The Conductor turns to me, then, and smiles at the orb in my hands. "Fascinating devices. Fortunately, there's still enough to hand them out like sweets. Consider it your anchor to the Hollow Earth. It can return you here in a flash, proverbially and quite literally."

"That sounds pretty useful," I say, and carefully tuck the orb into my pocket, careful to arrange it in such a way that the button won't get accidentally pressed. Agartha seems like an amazing place, but it wouldn't do me any good to wind up here unexpectedly.

The Conductor nods his approval and motions me forward with a wave of his hand. "Well then, let's get you to your destination, then, shall we? Tell me, world traveler, where are you bound?"

"Please, Chris," I correct. "I'm headed for New England, Solomon Island. I'm sure you've heard of it."

"Heard of it, yes, and I'll lead you there directly," he says, motioning for me to walk with him along a branch. "But if you're referring to more recent events, well…topside-speaking, I must admit to falling a touch behind the times, out of date," he admits, adjusting his collar. "You understand, though, a massive floramechanical network won't run itself. One always finds something needing doing down here. Wouldn't want to bore you with my tasks though. Suffice it to say I'm more of a groundsman than an engineer. Were we to vanish from the world—perish the thought—Agartha would still perpetuate a golden age without tarnish." He pauses at that and then lowers his voice. For the first time, his face holds a touch of concern. "I say _without tarnish_, but in confidence, troubling events are afoot." He waves a hand to the endless golden abyss below us. "Tremors of a distant thunder, outpourings of a horrific black water…I believe it gathers far beneath us in great reservoirs, and yet, I haven't the nerve to put that theorem to the test."

"Is Agartha in danger?" I ask.

The Conductor shakes his head. "I shouldn't think there's anything to worry about here, not yet in any case." Then he clears his throat. "Well, listen to me go on about the rot in the Tree of Life! I'm sure you have so many pressing cloak-and-dagger affairs to see to, up there in the world of man. Here we are then!" He points to an archway of golden wood beside the pathway. In the center of the arch, a membrane is glistening, like the one I stepped through before. I can see through it what appears to be some sort of old attic, and beyond it a dusky autumn forest. The Conductor motions me through the portal and smiles. "Onward to the New England coast, what!"

I nod, suddenly reminded of why I came, of what I may be facing. While there's nothing immediately dangerous in sight of the portal, there's no telling what waits for me beyond it. I shoulder my assault rifle and concentrate my magic. Then, I push through the membrane to the other side.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> One odd side effect of any MMO is how all the NPCs will act as if it's the most normal and uninteresting thing in the world to see your character wandering around like a heavily armed freak. They will carry on casual conversations with you while you brandish incredibly dangerous weapons. The Secret World has its own way of lampshading this when you get to Kingsmouth, which will show up in a later chapter, but I thought it good to mention here, where Chris would certainly have noticed the distinct non-reaction of the people of Ealdwic. To be fair, Ealdwic has its fair share of freaks living in Darkside. There's even a fighting pit there for supernatural monsters, so simple open carry of a weapon shouldn't elicit any comment.

The helpful Templar isn't in the game, but the Conductor and the Custodian are. In the game, the Conductor is referred to as the Stationmaster, but since I'd already called him "Conductor" in a previous chapter, I decided to let it stick. I used as much of the Conductor's dialogue as possible, not only from his cutscene but also from his various dialogue options, reworking it as necessary.

Roald Amundsen is twice mentioned in the course of the Solomon Island mission. He was the Norwegian explorer who was among the first to reach both the North and South poles, before he and his crew vanished during an attempted Arctic rescue operation.


	5. Southern Welcome

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Southern Welcome<strong>_

_Wednesday, September 25, 6:30PM  
>Solomon Island, Maine<em>

* * *

><p>Once on the other side, I immediately notice that I'm not in a normal attic. There's the portal to the incredible realm of Agartha, buzzing with bees behind me, but that's only the beginning of the strangeness. The most obvious thing beside that is the fact that the wall on the opposite end of this long, narrow room is missing or torn away. Beyond it, I can see rocky hills and trees in autumn foliage. Some of the trees must be very close, because I can see thick roots poking through the roof of this attic here and there. I wonder if this is an old house, partially buried…or maybe it was a normal house before whatever happened in Solomon Island! That thought gives me the shivers.<p>

Still, there's something not quite right about this room, if it is an attic. Everything tilts slightly backward, toward the portal. The floor is oddly sloped toward the center as well and there's a thick wooden beam jutting up right in front of me. I step around it and toward the missing wall, rifle shouldered and ready. There's still plenty of light for me to see, even though the sun has already set here—which seems odd: Maine should be a few hours _behind_ London…but maybe that's a part of time and space "bending" in Agartha. I can puzzle that out later, though. For now I scan the hillside surrounding the structure I've portaled into. There's nothing moving, and nothing suspicious. It looks like normal countryside, apart from another one of those glowy light-well things I saw outside the Agartha portal under Ealdwych Markets. Then, I see something odd right in front of me. The remnant of the wall looks almost like the prow of a ship…

_It **is** a ship!_ I realize. I jump down to the ground below to get a better look at it. It's an old Viking longship with some kind of thatched roof built up around the mast. The whole thing has somehow become buried in the side of a hill, with only the prow sticking out. A gasp in awe and wonder for a moment whether I should have chosen archaeology as a major instead.

The moment passes, though. The longship is an archaeological wonder, but the portal to Agartha probably isn't something I want everybody knowing about, and I have more pressing issues. I hear a scream from somewhere in the distance that reminds me of that. The scream sounds…strangled, not quite human. I level my rifle and start cautiously down the hill, in the direction of the scream. My instincts are shouting at me to go the other way, back to the portal and back to the safety of London, but it's my duty to investigate. I owe it to the Templars and people of this island.

I creep down through an opening between two massive rock formations. I can see a road through the trees up ahead, but nothing stirs on it. Between me and the road, though, just at the bottom of the hill, is a campsite: an _occupied_ campsite. Someone has set up a tent there and there's even a campfire going. Stepping closer, I see the occupants themselves. There's a Japanese girl, about my age, maybe younger. She has ruffled black hair and she's wearing a little pink jacket with some kind of anime character on it and red shorts with matching legwarmers attached by suspender straps. She's also wearing a razor blade in place of a pendant around her neck. Despite her _interesting_ fashion choices, it is the other occupant who holds my attention.

He's a man—late 30s, early 40s, I'd say—, dressed in full cowboy regalia, down to the hat, boots, and old leather coat. A lever-action Winchester is propped up on the log beside him while he uses a large tree branch to prod the fire beneath a steaming cauldron. Neither one of them seems to be the one who screamed, or the one responsible for making someone else scream, so I step cautiously forward.

The girl spots me first and waves, smiling. Then the man notices me staring at him. He waves me over and chuckles a little. "Don't worry, kid, you haven't gone back in time. I just happen to be the last of the cowboys," he says, the prods the steaming pot. "I've got your southern welcome right here: Mesquite beans, Texas style. Good ought to face evil on a full stomach."

The Japanese girl nods. "They're really good," she says, gesturing with a spoon to her own metal bowl, which is almost empty. "I'm Kaiyo Yako, by the way, agent for the Dragon."

"The Dragon?" I repeat, confused.

The girl, Kaiyo, cocks her head, looking confused herself. "You must have heard _something_ about us. If you came through Agartha you must know about the Secret World. We're one of the major cabals involved, along with the Templars and the Illuminati."

"I have heard something, not much," I say, remembering now that Micah mentioned the Dragon in passing once, as a secret faction similar to the Templars. "I guess I'm just a little surprised to be talking about secret societies openly."

"We're all in on the Secret World here, and it's no surprise that all of the big three secret societies are responding to something like this," says Kaiyo. She brushes her hair out of her eyes and looks me over. Her irises are red in the firelight. "I'm betting you're the Templar agent. You seem too nice and too careful to be with the Illuminati."

"Thanks, I think," I say. I lower my rifle and step into the camp. "My name's Christen Warden, but I prefer Chris."

"Name's Boone, Jack Boone," says the self-identified cowboy. "I'm a troubleshooter, not with or against any faction. My partner Wolf and I ride for a higher authority. When you need to know us, you'll know us."

"Pleasure to meet you, I guess," I say. His mysterious introduction is certainly more along the lines of what I expected, rather than Kaiyo's exuberant openness. My stomach growls, reminding me that I haven't eaten since lunch. The baked beans do smell wonderful, but I have something else on my mind. "Did either of you hear a scream? I thought it was from somewhere near the road and it didn't sound quite right."

Kaiyo nods. "I've been hearing them off and on ever since I got here. They don't seem to be leaving the road, though, so we should be alright. I got a good look at some of them, though. Pretty much classic zombies."

"Zombies?" I repeat. I clutch my rifle again without thinking.

"Hold it, partner," says Boone. "They aren't comin' 'round here, and as far as we can tell they ain't the catchin' type. We've got other matters to attend to, and you and me need to have a pow-wow before you run off on your little crusade." He stirs the fire once more with the charred stick, then lays it aside to look directly at me. "You Templars may take the high road, but just watch you don't get saddle rash from that high horse, okay? It's good work you do, and proud, but that can make for a blinkered combination. Can get you all tangled up trying to prove your prouder and more good than the next guy—or girl."

"I'm just here to scout out the situation, see what can be done to help these people and see what happened to them…so it doesn't happen anywhere else," I say.

Boone strokes his beard and looks at me with narrowed eyes. "Do you really believe that's all?" he challenges quietly. "You really think your boss would have sent you special delivery if it didn't kick dirt on the Illuminati's shoes?"

I shift and look down at my own feet. I don't have a good answer for that one. After all, Sonnac did say the reason I was being sent was because the Illuminati couldn't be trusted to handle the situation themselves. Whether that's really true or not, it's impossible to deny that there's a certain amount of politics and self-interest involved in my being sent here, especially since I'm not actually supposed to rescue anyone. I look back up and manage to meet Boone's gaze, then I shake my head slowly, acknowledging the truth of his assessment.

Boone's face softens somewhat. "Well, listen kid, I ain't here to pass no judgment. Find the measure of yourself, and if it should match with the company you keep, well then, I tip my hat to you. After all, society is what keeps us apart from the dark." He looks off into the forest, back the way I came. "Speakin' of society, we ought to have an agent from one more at least to join us for dinner." He looks back to me. "Go on 'nd sit down."

I take a seat next to Kaiyo, who hands me a spoon and a metal bowl heaped with beans. "Careful, it's hot," she says. I nod and place the bowl in my lap. The beans are very good.

I'm just finishing up when I hear a rustling in the forest. A branch snaps nearby. I pick up my rifle and focus my _anima_. Boone shifts too, but doesn't reach for his rifle. Kaiyo looks in the direction of the noise and looks almost as tense as I am, but she doesn't appear to have any weapons and instead one hand hovers over an odd, stuffed doll made of cloth with bits of colored yarn that hangs off a keychain on her waist. Her other hand closes around the razor blade she wears as a pendant.

A moment later, though, she relaxes. I lower my rifle as well, for I can see that the source of the noise isn't a zombie. Instead it's a dark-haired young man with a thin line of beard framing his face. He wears a trench coat over a button-down shirt and slacks, and he's holding a large sledgehammer that's difficult to describe. The head is somewhere between rectangular and round, colored somewhere between blue, green, and gray. The shaft shifts between red, orange, and yellow, and the air seems to bend a little around it. It makes the weapon a little difficult and disconcerting to look at.

The young man comes fully into the firelight and sees us all staring at him. He smirks. "Hey, don't tell me I missed the party."

"You're just in time, Illuminati," says Boone. "You're kind's been missed around these parts. They put on one hell of a homecoming parade. Got zombies 'nd everything."

"Zombies?" The young man laughs nervously. "You're kidding, right?"

Boone shakes his head. "Sit down, kid, and eat up. Might be the last good meal you get in a while. When you're finished, I'll tell you all I know about what's happened here."

The young man takes a seat on a collapsible camp chair and props the sledgehammer against his knee. He accepts a bowl from Boone, but doesn't dig in immediately. "I was told to expect you, man. You have a…reputation for showing up where you're not wanted," says the young man. "But what's with the chicks?" he asks, waving his spoon at Kaiyo and I.

"I'm Kaiyo Yako, and I'm with the Dragon," Kaiyo says brightly.

"Figures," says the young man. "Wherever there's chaos to cause and stuff to fuck up, the Dragon's sure to go…and if I recall your file, you like to get more personally involved in the fucking stuff up department than some."

Surprisingly, Kaiyo doesn't seem offended by this, just amused. "I do have my talents," she says.

The young man turns his attention to me. "So, babe, what's your story?" he asks, before shoveling a spoonful of beans into his mouth.

"Christen Warden," I say simply. "Templars."

The Illuminati agent spews out the mouthful of beans and nearly spills the bowl in his lap reaching for his weird hammer. I've already tipped the barrel of my rifle toward him and my finger is on the trigger. It wouldn't be a great position to shoot from, but I could still probably kill him. Beside me Kaiyo's hand goes back to the colorful doll keychain and the razor on her necklace.

Boone stands up, holding out his hands. "Whoa, there! There'll be no fightin' here!" he says. We all relax, marginally. "Now, I get that we're all here for different purposes. Me and my partner Wolf are here for our own reasons, Miss Yako is here on assignment to cause and observe chaos for the Dragon's theories, Miss Warden is here to fight monsters and kick dirt on the Illuminati's shoes, and you're here, young man, because the Illuminati are tryin' on corporate responsibility for size—or more like somebody made a fuss to the right people, 'nd you're here so your boss can get 'em to shut up." He looks at each of us in turn, and I make myself lower my rifle. "Sure, we can be divided in purpose, but we've got to stand united against darkness. This ain't my first rodeo, and I can tell just lookin' at this place we're gonna need all the unity we can get. You'll either work together, or we'll all be pushin' up daisies—if we're lucky that is."

"Is it really that bad, man?" asks the young man.

Boone nods. "I don't mean to say you stepped into hell, but when the wind blows west, you can just about smell the brimstone."

"Fuck," the young man mutters, head in his hands. "What the hell have I gotten myself into?"

"First time in the field?" Kaiyo asks.

"Hell yeah," he says. "I'm not supposed to be a part of any of this fucked-up field work shit you guys do." He catches a glare from me, regarding his language, and corrects himself. "Ladies, sorry! Jesus!" I roll my eyes, but he ignores it. "The name's Dan MacFadden. I'm in talent acquisition, or I'm supposed to be. Turns out one of the particular people my client was interested in belonged to this." He taps the hammer. "And he had the nerve to up and die on me—some stupid-ass gas explosion."

"Let me guess," Kaiyo interrupts. "After the previous owner died, you tried to take the hammer."

"Yeah, I figured it would pique my boss' interest—and I wasn't wrong, about that at least," Dan says defensively. "But how was I supposed to know it'd also bond to me like the fucking overly-attached girlfriend?"

I struggle, unsuccessfully, to stifle a laugh at Dan's choice of metaphor, and he takes the opportunity to roll his eyes at me.

"Ah, the Hammer of Eris?" says Kaiyo. "I thought I recognized it. It must be fascinating being bonded to such an ancient artifact."

"Fucking annoying more like," says Dan.

"What do you mean _bonding_?" I ask.

Kaiyo gives me a startled look, as if I'd just asked her to define the color blue. "Oh, uhm, well, when someone's bonded to something, it means they're attached, metaphysically. They can't be separated."

"In my case it means if I'm not in regular contact with this stupid hammer, I get cold sweats, nasty headaches, the works," says Dan. Then he grabs the shaft of the hammer possessively. "But don't you even _think_ of trying to test that out, Templar."

I hold up my hands. "We're all on the same side here…more or less, like Boone said."

"That's right, missie," Boone says. "You'll make a mighty fine Templar if you keep that attitude 'nd remember you're not above the rest of us."

"Thanks," I say, then shift on the log. "So…this island used to belong to the Illuminati. Any ideas what we should expect?"

"Not a fucking clue," says Dan. "Nobody in my organization's set foot on this island in a hundred years."

Boone nods his confirmation. "Whatever happened here, the Illuminati aren't to blame, at least not directly, though I'll not rule out some half-forgotten skeletons comin' out of their closets. Solomon Island has plenty of buried secrets," he says, then shakes his head. "Too much gone wrong for such a little island, but this is how it always starts. I've borne witness to it more times than I care to remember." He gazes off into the forest, as he remembers. "There's always the history, buried and waiting. Then somethin' sets it off. It begins with a single act: usually someone bein' damn stupid, damn greedy, or both—and let me tell you kids, that kind is the worst kind. Then…then it just piles on and piles on. Once that cellar door is open, ain't no one wedging the damn thing shut again."

"Any idea what set it off here?" Kaiyo asks.

Boone shakes his head. "All we know is death and fog came from the sea, or somebody brought it with 'em. If I were a gambling man, I'd put money on whoever that was still bein' around."

"Are there any survivors?" I ask.

He nods. "Bunch of 'em holed up in Kingsmouth town. Follow the main road down there, and the sound of gunfire, and you'll find 'em. That's the first thing I reckon you ought to do."

"And what about you, man?" asks Dan.

"I'm charged with keepin' watch here, least whatever brought this the fog down on Solomon Island find its way into Agartha. There'd be no stoppin' it then." He stops and look at us, his eyes hard. His hand curls into a fist. "As for the rest of you, whatever your reasons for bein' here, you find out what those people died for…and you bring a reckoning!"

I nod soberly.

Beside me, Kaiyo smiles and says, "I plan to, after all, that's what I'm good at." She takes a deep breath and looks up at the sky. While we've been eating and talking , full dark has fallen. The first quarter moon is peeking through the treetops at the edge of the camp. "I think I'll start out now," she says. "You two can catch up!" She grabs an overstuffed backpack shaped like a cartoon bunny, pushes a thick leatherbound book inside, and begins to put it on.

I blink in surprise. "You're leaving _now_?"

"Of course!" she says. "It'd be a shame to waste such a beautiful night!"

With that, she sets off skipping through the woods toward the main road..and toward where I heard the scream earlier. I grab my rifle and am about to start off after her, but Boone grabs my arm. "Whoa, there kid! Hold you're horses! Don't go chasin' after Miss Yako, and don't go worryin' about her neither."

I try to shake him off, but his grip is too strong. "An unarmed girl has just gone skipping off into the dark toward a zombie-infested road and you want me to wait here?"

"You don't know, do you? You're actually worried about her?" Dan guffaws. "Cute!"

"She's just a little raw, that's all," Boone says.

I let him guide me back to my seat while I glare at Dan. "What don't I know, Mister MacFadden?" I demand.

Dan laughs again. "God, you sound like a librarian. _Mister MacFadden_. I don't think I've been called that since I joined the Illuminati!"

I glare at him silently.

"Miss Yako's got gifts and weapons that ain't apparent," Boone explains. "She can more than take care of herself, especially at night."

"She's a dhampir—a human with vampire heritage—they're stronger at night," Dan says. "On top of that, she's been studying magic with the Dragon since she was eight. She's probably the most powerful blood mage in half a century, and her elemental magic isn't far behind." He chuckles. "If you're going to worry about someone out there, worry about the fucking zombies!"

"Oh." I sit back, mentally reviewing the way Kaiyo reacted every time there was a threat. That weird doll could be some kind of elemental magic focus, like the one I tried to use in the Crucible. As for the razor blade, the application of that to blood magic seems pretty obvious, as long as blood magic involves drawing actual blood from the user.

Dan shakes his head, still amused by my cluelessness. "You're such a fucking noob. What were those shitheads in London thinking when they sent you?"

"I reckon she's got gifts that ain't apparent too," Boone warns. "For starters, that gun she's been wavin' around ain't loaded, but she was lookin' at you like she knew she could kill with it."

"Was it that obvious?" I ask Boone.

Boone shakes his head. "I just know what to look for."

Dan looks to Boone. "You're kidding right?" He looks back at me. "You're carrying around an unloaded gun? Are you fucking stupid? How will you defend yourself?"

I know I shouldn't, but I let my temper get the better of me. "Like this!" I say, and then I do something every gun instructor told me never to do. I raise my rifle, pointing it just over Dan's head. I concentrate my _anima_ and fire a single explosive "round" of my magic. A tree branch behind Dan cracks, then snaps off entirely. Dan has to duck to avoid being scratched by it as it falls.

"Holy shit!" he says, shielding his head.

"You had that one coming partner," Boone says to him, motioning for me to lower my gun.

I do so, taking a deep breath to calm myself down. Once my anger cools enough, my presence of mind returns enough for me to feel embarrassed. "Sorry," I mutter.

"Sorry I doubted you!" Dan says quickly, then, unexpectedly, he smiles. "Have to say though, I dig your style. You sure you want to stick with the London crowd? They can be a dull bunch."

"I am," I say firmly. If he's any representation of what the Illuminati are like, I certainly want nothing to do with them.

"That's quite enough from both of you," Boone says slowly. "You got a hard day ahead, and the body'll need rest if you're to survive. Best get some sleep. I'll stand watch."

I nod and remember I wanted to call Micah, and that I need to report back to Sonnac if possible. I pull out my phone and am a little surprised to find I have a good signal. Then again, it's not an ordinary phone, so I suppose it's to be expected. "I have to make a call," I say. I dig a flashlight from my backpack and throw the shoulder strap of the AK47 around my neck, securing the weapon. "I'll be back there, by the portal."

Boone nods. "See that you don't stray from it," he warns. "Portal's safe, but there's worse than zombies in these woods."

I nod and switch on my flashlight, picking my way carefully back up the hill to the cave. I can see the glow of the strange light-well soon, and I stop beside it, within sight of the portal, to make my call. The first number I dial is home.

The phone rings four times before my Dad picks up. "Hello?" he says.

"Hi, Dad," I answer.

"Chris! Sorry, you caught us during dinner," he says. "Are you doing alright? Any news on when you can get back to your apartment?"

I bite my lip, remembering that my Dad doesn't know about my powers or my role in the Secret World. I don't know that he could handle it, and I certainly don't want to tell him that his eldest daughter is poking around for a London-based monster-hunter league on an island infested with zombies. "I'm fine," I say. "They're still working on repairing my old apartment. I'm on a field trip with my school now."

"Where to?" he asks.

"Maine, actually, I just wanted to let you know I arrived safe and sound."

"I didn't know you were coming to the States," he said.

"I didn't know either until just recently. The trip was very sudden, but I guess that's how they do things in London." I shift and look at my feet. The half-truths and lies are making me uncomfortable, and there's Micah's research to complete. "Can I talk to Micah?" I ask.

"Sure," he says. I hear him shout for my brother to come to the phone. Then he says, "Be careful in Maine, and make sure you get a flu shot if you can. There's been an outbreak on one of the islands there and they've had to quarantine it."

"I'll be careful," I assure him. "I love you," I say, and I mean it.

"I love you, too. Here's your brother."

There's the slight rustle of a phone being passed hand-to-hand, then Micah's voice comes on. "Hey, sis! What's up?"

"I arrived on Solomon Island, safe and sound for now," I say.

"There already? That was quick," he says.

"I'll have to tell you about it some time," I say. "Did your research turn up anything about non-underwater zombies?" I ask.

Micah lowers his voice. "Um, no, but the Pale Men were supposed to be able to go above water," he says. "Why do you ask?"

"Apparently they're all over Solomon Island," I say.

"You mean you're in the middle of a zombie apocalypse right now? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, and so far the only sign of zombies is one creepy scream off in the distance," I assure him.

"Well just make sure you don't get bit, and shoot anybody who does," Micah advises.

"These zombies don't work like that," I tell him. "According to one of the guys here, who seems pretty experienced, they're not contagious."

"Well, that's a relief," says Micah. "Still best not to take a chance, though."

"Don't worry," I say. "It might not kill me, but I have no desire to be hurt by a zombie. Did you find out anything more from your research?"

"Yeah," he says. "Apparently, the Pale Men were brought to Solomon Island by the Vikings about a thousand years ago. Did you know the Vikings got here before Columbus?"

"Yes," I say, patting the prow of the half-buried Viking longship beside me.

"Well, anyway, the Vikings helped the natives fight some kind of war against darkness or whatever and they made the Pale Men fight on their side, even though they're evil. When the Vikings left, some of the Pale Men stayed behind. They're amphibious or something, so they don't go far from the water and they've never been seen anywhere else. Some of them are giants and lots of them look like members of the Flying Dutchman's crew."

"The what?"

"Oh, come on, sis. _Pirates of the Caribbean 2_ and _3_?"

"Sorry, it's been a while, and I only saw each of those movies once," I say. One and four were way better anyway, in my opinion. "What about them?"

"Well they're covered in fish parts, and other parts, like Davy Jones has that octopus-tentacle beard thing, and then there's that other guy with the hammerhead-shark head?"

"I remember." Vaguely, but I remember. "So you're saying the Pale Men look like them? They have…fish parts too?"

"Yeah, and they were photographed dragging some huge pods ashore back in the '70s, but nobody's seen them since. The guy who made this blog—Tyler Freeborn—he seemed to think they'd be coming back some day, though," he says.

"That's not much to go on, but it's better than nothing," I say. "Anything else?"

"A smattering of other monster reports, but nothing solid," says Micah. "Of course, if these zombies aren't aquatic, then I guess we're back to square one."

"Maybe. I guess I'll find out tomorrow," I say, then take a deep breath. "Thanks for everything, Micah. I'll call you back when I can. Tell Dad I love him and I'm staying safe."

"I will. Be careful, sis," he says. "If you die and become a zombie, I swear I'll kill you."

"Thanks, I think…I love you to, Micah," I say. Then I hang up. I still have one more call to make, and it's getting late in London.

To my surprise, he answers on the first ring, even though I know it must be 1 o'clock in the morning over there. His voice does sound a little groggy though. "Chris," he says. "I take it your arrival was without complications."

"I got through Agartha safe and sound," I report. "The portal's being guarded on this side by someone called Jack Boone."

"Ah, an old ally, though is presence on Solomon Island is…somewhat troubling," says Sonnac. "He and his partner John Wolf are never deployed into a situation unless it is truly important, truly dire, or both."

"Well, he says there are zombies on the island, and that some kind of fog came in from the sea," I say. "He seems to think someone brought it back to the island and that they're still here, so he's guarding the portal to keep them from getting out that way."

"A sound tactical decision," Sonnac comments. "We are familiar, of course, with the walking undead, though not as they're portrayed in television or trashy horror novels. Their bite, in particular, is no more or less dangerous than yours or mine. Their primary advantage is their very nature: not alive, not dead, and consequently able to continue fighting so long as whatever force reanimated them remains viable. Still, they are normally only a threat in large numbers."

"Well, apparently they have that here, I don't know for sure though," I say. "I haven't seen any of them myself. But I'm going into Kingsmouth tomorrow to see the survivors, and I'll get a better idea how many zombies there are by talking to them."

"Very well," says Sonnac. "Just remember what I said. This is not a rescue operation."

I nod. "I know," I say. "There's one other thing, though. The Dragon and the Illuminati have both sent agents to Solomon Island as well."

"That was to be expected, I'm afraid," says Sonnac. "Names?"

"Kaiyo Yako is the Dragon agent. Dan MacFadden is the Illuminati agent."

"We have extensive files on Miss Yako, but I confess ignorance with the other one," says Sonnac.

"He says he was just a recruiter for the Illuminati until he accidently got bound to the Hammer of Eris," I say.

"Ah, we were wondering when that particular artifact would turn back up. That it had fallen into Illuminati hands was a foregone conclusion."

"Is it dangerous? Should I be worried?" I ask.

"Yes to the first, and not particularly to the second. Really its powers are localized and mainly defensive, though quite impressive. The upper curve of its potential pales in comparison with your own, however, which should put you and a novice wielder roughly on par with one another," says Sonnac. "Nevertheless, caution is advised."

"I'll be careful, and I'll report back as soon as I find out more," I promise. I look at the phone then and see that he's already hung up. I can't blame him. This day has left me exhausted too.

I make my way back to the camp and find Jack Boone sitting on a log, staring out at the forest while Dan wriggles on the ground beside the fire, trying vainly to get comfortable. "Tent's all yours, Miss Warden," Boone tells me.

I smile and thank him. I try not to turn down chivalry when it benefits me, and it's especially hard to refuse when it makes someone like Dan uncomfortable. I go into the tent and lie down on the cot I find inside. I pray for Kaiyo's safety during the night, and that of the Kingsmouth survivors. I also pray for my own safety tomorrow morning when Dan and I set out ourselves. There's lots to think about, and lots to worry me about my first mission, but in spite of all of it I am soon asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Before you ask, the "glowy light-well things" Chris keeps referring to are the game's _anima_ wells, where players revive and can resurrect their bodies. She will eventually learn this term and their purpose (some missions _do_ require the player to die). So far in game, I have managed not to get Chris (an actual character that I play) killed, though there have been a couple close calls related to drawing too much unwanted attention, averted by a well-timed "energy drink" potion. I confess to killing her once deliberately so I could resurrect across the map without having to run all that way...but I digress!

The portal to Agartha in Kingsmouth actually is in a buried Viking longship, which I, like Chris, mistook for an attic at first. The backstory of the Vikings, natives, and Pale Men is addressed in the "Monsters of Maine" blog mentioned earlier and also in the in-game Lore segment: "The Darkness War." The Pale Men are, of course, the Draug, one of the game's monsters, and their signature feature is tentacles, barnacles, crab pincers and other pieces of marine life sprouting from their bodies. The crew of the _Flying Dutchman_ in the second and third _Pirates of the __Caribbean_ movies were the only analogue I could think of, and it would definitely be something Micah could use as a reference. No comment on Chris' movie preferences!

Zombie screams are a _very_ common thing to hear in Kingsmouth, so much so that they tend to become a part of the background noise that players ignore. Sometimes players will even ignore the actual _zombies_, running through town with a pack of them howling at their heels until the zombies have had enough and go running back the way they came._  
><em>

James Boone is the first quest-giver NPC you meet in Kingsmouth zone, and his lines are taken from a cutscene and the various lines of dialogue he'll say, mixed freely. Not all of these dialogue options can be heard in-game with a single character, since he will say different things depending on which faction your character is a part of. I have characters in all three factions, so I was able to hear all the dialogues and pick and choose what fit the conversation.

Speaking of which, it is my pleasure to introduce Kaiyo Yako and Daniel MacFadden, my Dragon and Illuminati characters. In the game, all three factions are sending agents to Solomon Island, which makes sense, given the scale of the disaster (even the unofficial factions of the Secret World, the Phoenicians and the Orachi, send agents there!), and I wanted to depict that, as well as give myself some peers in the field for Chris to interact with. I didn't want to have them all have the same backstory as Chris, though, as far as acquiring their powers and becoming agents (which is pretty much what happens in the game). Consequently, neither Kaiyo nor Dan are "Bees."

In game, there are Vampires, which the player eventually fights in Transylvania. Some of them are almost entirely human in appearance, which leads to the possibility of human/vampire offspring. According to Balkan folklore, a dhampir is the offspring of a vampire and a human. They were said to have the powers of a vampire but not their weaknesses, and they were thus uniquely qualified to become vampire hunters, which was their traditional role and remains their preferred trade in most fiction (this is one reason I was a little shocked to hear from a friend that apparently in the _Twilight_ series the vampires trying to kill Bella/Edward's child are _relieved_ to find out she's a dhampir and figure because of that she's not a threat, but then again _Twilight_ vampires are weird like that). I'm not sure what all being a dhampir will mean for Kaiyo, but I'm sure it must be good for her blood magic! By comparison, my idea for Dan's predicament is fairly original. It does serve as a cautionary tale not to just go around picking up weird artifacts if you don't know what they do. There are hammers and chaos focuses in the game, but no Hammer of Eris with the properties of both and such a unique appearance. As for Dan himself, I tried to base his mannerisms and personality on those of the recruiter who talks to Illuminati characters in a cutscene at the very beginning of the game. I apologize for his rather excessive language.

The overly attached girlfriend is an internet meme and youtube personality.

The dialogue with Sonnac at the end of this chapter does not appear in the game, so it's my creation. I think I captured Sonnac's manner well enough, and I imagine he'd care enough to stay up waiting for an agent to report in from her first assignment in the field.


	6. For a Fistful of Zombies

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

* * *

><p><em><strong>For a Fistful of Zombies<strong>_

_Thursday, September 26, 6:01AM  
>Agartha Entrance, Solomon Island, Maine<em>

* * *

><p>The cold air wakes me before first light. I lay on the cot for half an hour, curled up against the almost painfully crisp air, trying to steal a few more minutes of sleep as the walls of the tent around me are slowly transformed by the play of tree shadows and the steadily brightening sunlight. I give up when my phone says it's just past 6 o'clock. I can hear gunshots echoing from somewhere in the distance. I have to remind myself that this is a good sound under the circumstances, because gunshots means survivors…at least, hopefully it does. I can hear other noises too, nearer at hand: the quiet murmur of two men's voices and the low crackling of a campfire. This last is what convinces me to get up and step out into the cold morning air.<p>

Jack Boone and Dan MacFadden are both up already. Dan is sitting a camp chair, hunched over the fire, trying to warm himself. Boone on the other hand seems untouched by the cold. He paces back and forth at the edge of camp holding his Winchester. He glares through the trees in the direction of the road. Then suddenly he shoulders his rifle and fires into the forest. I don't see what he's shooting at until it hits the ground. It's a man, or at least, it looks like a man. His clothes are tattered and bloody and his skin is a flakey pale gray. He has multiple gaping wounds large enough for me to see from here, but in spite of them he moans once and struggles to rise before a second shot from Boone stills him.

"A zombie," I realize. I swallow and force myself to calm down. _At least it isn't the Filth-infested kind from that weird dream_, I tell myself, though the truth is that facing even a garden variety zombie in real life is more terrifying than any nightmare.

Dan looks up from rubbing his hands over the fire. "Of course it's a zombie," he says flatly. "What the fuck were you expecting? A cupcake?"

"I've just…never seen one in real life before, okay?" I admit reluctantly.

Dan shakes his head. "You really are a noob," he says.

"You'll see enough of 'em to last a lifetime soon," says Boone, not taking his eyes off the surrounding woodlands. "The forest crawls with 'em this morning. Get's my fingers itchin' for two matters. One—" He raises the Winchester again. This time I see what he's shooting at the moment before he fires. There's another zombie shambling towards us, a man with blistered gray skin clad in nothing but his boxers. I see him just in time to catch Boone's shot slamming into the zombies head in a spray of red. I feel a little nauseous . Even with the hole in the side of its head, the zombie still manages an inhuman shriek before it falls to the ground.

"The other, figurin' out a way to make 'em stay down," Boone finishes, lowering his rifle.

"Looks like you've got that one down," Dan says.

"Oh, he'll be up again," says Boone. "Give 'em a few hours, and they'll be back up an' walkin' around, headwound and all." He shakes his head. "It ain't right the way the dead walk the earth. They deserve their six feet the same as anyone else."

Dan's eyes narrow in confusion, but I catch the reference. "Sonnac told me they could keep fighting as long as whatever reanimated them was still in effect," I say. "Till we find that, I guess keeping down the number of active zombies will be an ongoing problem."

"Right on both counts," says Boone. "I'll wager whoever or whatever keeps 'em going is the same thing as brought the fog to Solomon Island." He turns away from the woods for the first time and looks at the two of us directly. "Now I'm sworn to keepin' guard here and you two got places to be, but nothin's stoppin' you from cullin' the herd as you go. Hell, find out what makes 'em tick and how to make that tickin' stop, and I'll buy you a beer at the apocalypse."

"I'll hold you to that," says Dan, smirking.

Suddenly, I hear a horn blare, followed by several wet thumps and the squeal of brakes. Everyone tenses. Moments later there are gunshots—much closer than the ones I heard in the tent before—and screaming.

"Someone's in trouble! We've got to help him!" I reach for my rifle, but it's still in the tent. I go back in after it, and my backpack with the first aid kit attached.

"It's too far away," I hear Boone say behind me. "I can't see anything through the trees, and if I run off and leave my post, we risk this gettin' out into the world!"

"Stay then," I say, throwing on my backpack and lifting my rifle. "Dan and I'll take care of it!"

"Hell no!" says Dan. "You Templars want to play hero, that's your concern."

I glare at him, but I half expected this reasoning and I have a ready reply. "And what if that person happens to be the only one who knows what happened on this Island? The only one who knows whose responsible for brining zombies and fog to your island? Your boss might not be too happy if you let him or her die without learning what they know first," I say.

Dan glares at me, then says, "Fuck!" and lifts his hammer, pushing himself out of the chair. He charges towards the road and I have to run to keep up with him.

We descend a small rise and pass a large gray boulder to reach the road. The scene there is chaotic. Abandoned cars lie here and there all along the highway. To my right is a sedan, rolled over on its side. To my left and across the road, a red pickup with an enclosed bed has hit a telephone pole, tilting it. The door is open and three people are down on their hands and knees beside it, kneeling over something. Then one of them—a woman in an orange sweater with a tangled mass of black hair—lifts her head and I see her face isn't human, not anymore. She is a zombie. Her right eye is dead white while her left missing, with only a dark, bloody hole to mark where it should be. A mass of raw meat is in her mouth, red running down her chin. She gurgles as she chews, and I notice where the meat came from: a body that the other two zombies are still hunched over, tearing at. It's a human body, and it could be the person who fired those shots.

I clench my jaw, raise my rifle, and fire a three round burst. My shots aren't as accurate as Boone's, but the result is the same. Red mist slams the zombie's head sideways as the meat falls from its mouth. It manages one final gurgle before it collapses. The other two zombies rise and turn towards me. I hit the second with a burst in the torso. It jerks, but does not go down until a second burst, a little higher, finishes the job. By this time, the third zombie is charging at me. It's surprisingly fast. I panic and sweep it with fully automatic fire. The zombie doubles over, hit, and I finish it with a burst through the top of its head.

Once it's down, I look at the body the zombies were trying to eat. There's not much left but shredded meat and white bones. I don't see even tatters of clothes and there's no gun and no shell casings to be seen. I doubt that three zombies could have done this to a person in the time it took us to run down to the road. It's probably an older corpse, not our shooter. I turn to tell Dan this, wondering where he went during the fight.

Suddenly, death-cold hands clamp down on my right arm with an unyielding, wiry grip. I turn to find a fourth zombie has come in from the side and latched onto me. It opens a mouthful of uneven teeth and moves in for a bite.

But before it can, the Hammer of Eris cuts a blue-silver arc through the air beside me, landing on the zombie's head. I hear bone crush and the zombie releases my arm, falling to the ground beside me. I turn to find Dan standing over it. "Thank you. You saved my life," I say, more than a little surprised.

"I assure you it was for perfectly selfish reasons," he says. "Look over there!"

I look down the road to my left and see more than a dozen zombies standing around near a dusty red pickup truck. Some of them are looking our way with their unnerving blank white eyes. The only things between us and them is a old white BMW sedan a few yards away and an orange gas can a few yards beyond that.

"Loud sounds and sudden movements get their attention, so let's not do either of those, okay?" Dan says.

"But the shots came from that direction," I say.

"Then we'll just go around," says Dan.

I shake my head. "There could be more of them in the forest, and besides it would take too long." I see a dark, glistening patch on the asphalt beneath the gas can. I nod toward it. "You said the last owner of the Hammer of Eris died in a gas explosion, do you think you could make that explode _without_ dying?"

"Sure, the last owner was a fucking idiot, but I don't see how that'll help."

"It won't," I say. "Unless I lure the zombies over while you do it. That might even the odds."

Dan looks at me, then shifts his grip on the hammer. "Sure you don't want to go around?"

"There's no time," I say, trying to sound confident while inwardly praying that I haven't made a mistake.

"Right, then," he says. "Let's just move toward them slow and easy, and you make a loud noise when I give the word."

We move forward slowly. The zombies who were staring at us mostly lose interest. Several of them kneel over something I can't see on the other side of the pickup truck. I hope it's not our shooter. I stop at the back of the BMW while Dan continues further, till he's within one yard of the gas can. The zombies seem to be ignoring us, or else completely oblivious to our presence. Dan holds his hammer parallel to the ground, with both hands. "Alright, let's make some noise," he says.

I jump up and slam my full weight into the trunk of the car. It's not much, but a lot of these old cars have oversensitive car alarms, and this one is no exception. A three toned alarm starts wailing at headache-inducing decibels. The zombies scramble to their feet and look my way. The begin to shamble toward the noise, a little confused at first, but then they break into a run. I open fire, using short bursts to pick off zombies on the flanks who might escape our trap. "Dan, light it!" I shout.

"They need to be closer!" he shouts back.

The nearest zombies are within a couple yards of him, and coming on fast. I'm afraid he'll be overrun, and I have no desire to watch him die. "Dan!" I shout.

"Closer!" he insists. He waits another second, till the zombies are almost on top of him, some even past the gas can, then he jumps backward and thrusts the hammer forward.

A wave of red fire rolls out of the handle, through the air and the intervening zombies, and hits the gas can. Then there's a fireball. I shield my eyes as a wave of heat rolls past me. When I open my eyes again the zombies are screaming louder than the car alarm, their bodies engulfed in flame. I fire bursts at a few that are still mobile, but it soon becomes apparent that none of them are going to walk away from this one. One by one they all collapse into burning heaps and lay still. Their screams go silent even as their lifeless tissue burns.

I step around the old sedan and find Dan picking himself up off the asphalt. His bootlaces are a little singed, but otherwise he seems to be alright. "They needed…to be closer," he says, breathing hard.

"I can't argue with your results," I say.

"Good. Then shut off that stupid alarm before more zombies come to check it out."

"I…uh…don't know how," I admit sheepishly.

Dan rolls his eyes, hefts his hammer, and moves over to the car. He swings the hammer down on the hood twice, hard enough to leave deep dents, but this only causes the alarm to switch tones. "Fuck it!" he says, giving up. "Let's see what the zombies were so interested in over here and then get the hell out of here."

We pick our way around and over the smoldering corpses to the dusty red pickup. There are two bodies over here, both badly mauled. I don't want to think about the teeth that made those wounds. Most of them are still bleeding. I force myself to ignore that and look for identifying features. The woman is in hiking clothes, and her face is mercifully hidden. The man's lifeless eyes stare at her, his mouth still open in a scream. I see a badge on his chest and realize his torn and bloody clothes are what's left of a police uniform. In his hand I see a semi-automatic pistol—a Glock, I think—it's slide locked open, spent cartridges littered on the ground around him. A pair of zombies lie nearby, littered with fresh bullet holes.

"Congratulations," says Dan. "Looks like we found our shooter."

I kneel down and close his eyes respectfully. I wish I could do more. I wish I had been able to save him, but I know there was nothing I could have done, and that beating myself up with guilt over it won't help. That's what I tell myself anyway. I pull off his badge, which bears the name Nathaniel Henry, and something else comes with it, a paper. I unfold it. _Don't try to be a hero, _it reads,_ just get all the ammo you can find and get the hell back to the Sheriff's Office in Kingsmouth town. Lives depend on it!_ The last sentence is underlined, and the note is signed, _Deputy Andy_.

I stand and hold the note out to Dan. As he reads it, I go over to the truck. Standing this close, I realize the engine is still running. Four large ammo cans sit in the back. I lift one experimentally. It's nearly heavy enough to require both hands. They're definitely full. "We need to get this ammo to the Sheriff's Office, now," I say.

"_We_ don't have to do anything," says Dan. "You see what playing the hero did for this guy. You want to end up like him, that's your call, Templar."

I grit my teeth and try to think of a way to put this that even he can't refuse. "This truck is loaded with ammunition, the keys are in the ignition, and it's still running," I look him in the eye. "Are you telling me you'd rather _walk_ all the way to Kingsmouth with nothing but that stupid hammer?"

Dan glares at me, then sighs and looks down. When he looks back up, he refuses to meet my gaze, staring past me instead. "Fuck me!" he says abruptly.

My fists clench, finally snapping at his obscenities. "You don't have to be so rude about it!" I say.

"No, literally! Look behind you!" Dan shouts, raising his hammer. I realize the look in his eyes isn't hate or defiance, but alarm.

I turn then and see a massive zombie emerging from the forest. He stands over seven feet tall with freakishly huge muscles, so large his skull-like face is almost swallowed by them. He reminds me of the huge zombie Sarah faced in my strange dream of the Tokyo Incident. How such a creature could once have been human is beyond my comprehension, but there's no time to even try to understand. The zombie his charging at us!

I raise my rifle and fire, but though I see my shots ripping through the zombie's thick muscles, it doesn't even slow his charge. Dan rushes past me to face the zombie, slamming it in the gut with a swing of his hammer. Whether this actually hurts the zombie or not, it does get his attention. He stops his charge and raises his meaty fists over his head. Dan steps back and holds his hammer, ready to block the blow, but when the zombie brings down its fists, it is not on Dan. Instead he slams them into the ground. Chunks of asphalt fly everywhere and Dan is thrown backward. Then I stand alone against the monster.

I try to go for the headshot, but my _anima_ bullets are deflected by thick muscle and bone. They do not slow the zombie measurably, though now it is bleeding heavily from numerous wounds. It does get the zombie to look at me. I step back, realizing that it is about to charge at me and that I cannot stop it before it reaches me…at least, not with the spells I have. In desperation, I reach for the grenade launcher attached under the barrel of my AK47. It's the only thing I can even imagine being powerful enough to put down this zombie. I don't know any spells for it, but Sonnac said I would learn new ones on my own in time. If ever there was a time I needed that, it's now!

I convince myself that I can, because it is that or die, and I do not think God wants me to die just yet. I reach up and pull the trigger of the grenade launcher. The rifle bucks, but it's barely perceptible. I see a blue trail of light arc from the barrel of the grenade launcher to the ground right in front of the charging zombie. Then it explodes. The feet and legs of the zombie are charred deeply now. It growls and staggers toward me, much slower than before.

Dan manages to push himself to his feet and rushes at the zombie from the side. He swings low this time, taking out one knee. I riddle the other with automatic fire, and it also collapses. Then Dan swings for the head, his hammer ripping a trail of fire through the air. When it hits I hear bones crunch and the zombie's head snaps back at an unnatural angle. Then, it falls face-first to the pavement.

Dan steps back from the fallen hulk. Sweat from his forehead mingles with blood from several cuts on his face. "Well, that was refreshing…" he says, breathing heavily. He turns to me. "Yes, agreed...you win...fucking brilliant idea. Let's use the truck and get the hell out of here before another one of those damn things comes over to check out that fucking car alarm."

He starts walking to the truck but I put a hand on his shoulder. I can see more cuts now, staining parts of his white shirt red. "You're hurt," I say, "maybe badly."

"I'll live," he says.

"I can help you," I say. At least, I think I can. The wounds look too numerous to treat with my first aid kit, and there isn't time for that, but learning a new spell has given me the confidence to seek new uses for the ones I already know, like the spell that heals me by leeching _anima_ from enemies. I see the zombie hulk on the ground stirring weakly and sense an opportunity.

"Hold still," I tell Dan, then I aim at the downed zombie and fire. The round explodes, sending back an invisible wave of anima, but this time instead of soaking it in myself as I've done before, I direct it to Dan, to his wounds. His eyes go wide, and I know it's working. I fire again. The zombie goes completely still. Dan meanwhile rubs his face. Where his cuts once were there is now only blood on an unmarked face.

"What the fuck?" he mutters. "You never told me you were a healer!"

I smile. "One of my many talents. I'm also an English literature major," I say, and direct him into the cab of the pickup truck. "Come on, let's get this ammunition into Kingsmouth!"

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Here it is! The title of the story finally justified: a lit major shoots zombies! More to follow!

The name of this chapter is lifted directly from the title of the first quest players receive on reaching Solomon Island: a quest to kill zombies in various creative ways while on the road to Kingsmouth. I was going to title this chapter something different, but the title of the quest just seemed to fit too well. The events of the chapter, also, turned out to follow the quest rather well. In the game, however, you are not on a quest to rescue a possible survivor, you're just running around slaughtering zombies who were minding their own business, which is somehow more satisfying.

In the game, you do set off a car alarm and set off a container of gas, but both items are different than in this chapter. In the game, the car alarm only goes off for a few seconds. I wish car alarms did this in real life, too! As for the gas, it is tricky to set it off without lighting yourself on fire, especially as a new player (and especially while you're trying to set off a car alarm at the same time. Mostly I wind up lighting myself on fire by accident. Fortunately, the fire in the game is much less effective than in this chapter. It's mainly just an annoyance to players and a little extra damage that helps them put down the burning zombies just a little bit faster.

The policeman's body, the note, and the pickup with the ammo in it is all part of the game's "Bullets for Andy" sidequest. However, in using the policeman and his truck to lure Dan and Chris out onto the road, I realized that the smart thing to do would not be to take the ammo cans and try to carry them to Kingsmouth by hand (as the player does in the game), but to use the pickup truck right there. In the game, players walk everywhere because that's what the game is designed to support, but in real life, cars would be an option. It will be interesting seeing how these characters use said option.

The grenade launcher spell Chris learns is my version of "Slow the Advance," an actual move in the game, albeit one that players don't normally learn until much later.

While I'm trying not to be too explicit and graphic, this is a story based on a dark and graphic violent video game. If the descriptions in this or subsequent chapters bother you or strike you as something too strong for the "T" rating, let me know. I can always up it to M.


	7. Sheriff's Office

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Sheriff's Office<strong>_

_Thursday, September 26, 8:08AM  
>Road to Kingsmouth, Solomon Island, Maine<em>

* * *

><p>I see a sign on the roadside as we drive past it. <em>Kingsmouth Ahead<em> it reads, but someone has painted a large red _D_ over the first two letters of the second word, changing it to _Kingsmouth Dead_. I shift in my seat and hope the message isn't prophetic.

We've been following the sound of gunfire towards Kingsmouth for about an hour now. It's been slow going. The little two-lane highway we're following spends a lot of time winding through the forest, and we have had to move even slower to drive around abandoned vehicles and bodies. So far we've seen no sign of Kaiyo or any other survivors. Fortunately we haven't seen many zombies either.

Even as I think that, we round a bend in the road and I see a group of zombies standing listlessly around a large sign that says _Welcome to Kingsmouth_. The zombies' heads rise as we pass, their dead eyes turning our way. I turn in my seat and take aim. I can see them starting to step towards us. I squeeze the trigger and a three-round burst puts down the first zombie. The others break into a run, charging at the pickup.

"Oh come on, did you have to piss them off?" Dan says, swerving to get out of their way.

"They were already interested in us," I say. I fire a second burst, but due to the motion of the pickup my shots go wide. I frown and flip the fire selector down to automatic, even though this strictly isn't necessary for the spell to work. I sweep the group with fire and most of them go down.

The two who don't are behind us. Dan accelerates slightly and leaves them behind, then he turns to me. "Try not to do that again, okay? You remember loud noises attract the fuckers, right? You'll bring every one of them on the island down on us with that little toy gun of yours if you don't rein in that trigger finger."

I glare at him, but then I hear something over the sound of the pickup's engine and the close-by gunshots. It's a howling sound from a forested hill to the south of us, accompanied by the sounds of hundreds of feet. I can't see anything through the trees, but I don't have to in order to know what's coming. "Zombie charge!" I warn.

"No shit!" Dan steps on the accelerator. "Sheriff's Office is just ahead." He points to a blocky building up ahead with a makeshift fence surrounding it. The road runs almost parallel to it before curving to meet the barricade. Up on its flat roof I can see men with rifles crouching, looking toward the hillside beyond the road.

_We found the survivors, now we just have to live long enough to meet them_, I think to myself and point my rifle out the window, just as the first wave of zombies comes charging out of the trees and across the road. I open fire, sweeping them. The men on the rooftop add their shots a moment later, but for every zombie we down, two more seem to rush out of the trees.

Dan tries to avoid the line of zombies at first, but then they slam into the side of the pickup. Hands reach at my open window and Dan slams the wheel over to the right. The vehicle bounces hard twice, then the front passenger side catches on something. The pickup fishtails to the left, then the rear wheels screech and kick up dust, spinning freely over gravel. "Shit!" Dan shouts.

"Stop swearing and do something!" I yell, though I'm not sure what he _could_ do. There's little enough I can do. A zombie has grabbed the barrel of my rifle, and as I try to yank it away more hands reach inside. I lean back, out of their reach, and draw a pistol from my concealed holster with my right hand. As I do so, the relentless pull of the cold grasping hands wrenches my rifle away from me. In desperation I draw my other pistol and start shooting, my guns held close to my chest. The slides hit me with sharp jabs to the ribs every time the guns recoil, but I manage not to lose control of the weapons and I kill the zombie that just took my rifle.

More take its place. They begin tearing at the door. I can hear the metal dent. Others climb up on the hood and slam bloody fists and faces into the windshield. Webs of cracks appear in the glass. _Oh, God! Why do zombies have to be so strong!_ I wonder if my shots can weaken them. At this point, it's certainly worth a try. I keep firing, imagining my bullets lodging in the zombies, sapping their unnatural strength. I have no idea whether or not it's working at first, then one of the zombies at my window manages to grab my leg and I shake it off almost effortlessly. "I've got them weakened on my side!" I announce.

"That's fucking great for you!" Dan says through gritted teeth. I turn to see him trying to wrest his hammer out of the grasp of several zombies. The hammer glows with a strange blue fire wherever the zombies touch it, burning away their flesh and they let go, but more rush to take their place.

Suddenly, there's a crackling sound. A bolt of white lightning appears, arcing between the zombies on the hood and others in the hoard. They fall, smoldering. Through the cracks on the windshield, I can see a gate has opened in the makeshift fence surrounding the building ahead. Kaiyo stands in the gap, one hand on her razor-blade pendent, the other outstretched over the group of fried zombies. More zombies charge at her and she pulls her hand down off her pendant, sharply, then opens it. Blood flows from her hand like mist, but unlike mist it seeks out the nearest zombie, entering its nose and mouth. Moments later the zombies collapses and streams of red mist flow from its own old wounds, seeking new targets. Several human survivors armed with rifles or pistols emerge from the gate behind Kaiyo and open fire on the remaining hoard, but they hardly seem necessary. I realize now why I Dan said I should have been afraid for the zombies!

I work the handle of the door with my foot and kick it open, bowling over the weakened zombies. I begin clambering out when I see a zombie charging at me. I fire automatically, as fast and as accurate as I can. I realize a second later that I'm holding my guns weird, sideways, with my wrists crossed, but it seems to somehow stabilize the shock of firing both guns together, and I can't deny the results. The unfortunate zombie falls to the ground in front of me, its head ruined.

Meanwhile, Kaiyo's blood infection has spread through most of the hoard, leaving only a handful of stragglers for the Kingsmouth survivors, Dan, or I to pick off. I leave them to it while I look for my rifle. I find it pinned under a zombie. It's still and I think it's dead—well, _really_ dead—but I shoot it once through the forehead just to be sure, then holster my pistols and carefully pull my AK47 out from under it.

Only then when the fight is over and my heartbeat is slowing, do I really see the zombie lying on the ground in front of me. He's an old man, wearing an orange wool sweater, socks and sandals, and shattered bifocals. Beneath a film of foam and blood, his face is lined with wrinkles and smile lines. _He was someone's grandfather once_, I think, _and I just put a bullet hole in his forehead._ I feel suddenly cold, and nauseous.

Kaiyo comes up beside me and touches my shoulder. "Hey, are you alright?" she asks. "You look a little pale."

"I-I just…I think I'm going to be sick!" I manage to stagger over to the embankment by the side of the road (which is thankfully free of zombies) before my stomach heaves and I double over, vomiting.

Kaiyo supports me and helps me straighten up when I'm done, producing a cleaning wipe from somewhere. She gives me an apologetic look. "Sorry, Chris," she says. "I wasn't thinking about you being new and all. Blood magic can look pretty gruesome. I probably should have held back a little."

I shake my head weakly. "No, it's not you," I say, though to be honest her blood magic _was_ surprisingly gross. Instead I wave my hand at the corpses littering the road. "It's them…me…all of this."

"It is a bit much to take in I guess," Kaiyo says. "Just try to take it one step at a time, okay?"

At this point a policeman with a handsomely boyish face comes over. "You alright, Miss?" he asks.

I nod.

"Glad to hear it," he says. "You ladies go on and get inside. We got the ammo, and the truck's not goin' anywhere for now. Wheels gummed up real good on…well, on one of them." He jabs a thumb at the zombies. "I'll have Moose take a look at it, then we'll close up again if he can't get it runnin'." He shifts his feet. "By the way, where'd you find all those cases of ammo?"

"They were in the truck when we found it. We found an officer's body beside it," I hand him the badge of Nathaniel Henry. "I'm sorry," I say.

He takes the badge from me and his face falls. His lip trembles a little and I think for a moment he's going to start crying right there. "Oh that's…that's too bad. Nathan, he…he was a good guy. A real good guy. Real swell…" He looks back up, as if just realizing we're still there. "You, uh, you go on inside," he says. "Miss Yako can show you where you can get cleaned up. I…I've got to show this to Sheriff Bannerman."

He turns and walks off to a group of survivors who are standing around the pickup. Meanwhile Kaiyo takes my arm and leads me in through the makeshift gate into the little compound surrounding the Sheriff's Office. The barricade is a segmented chain-link fence held in place by abandoned cars, sandbags, barrels, porta-potties, dumpsters, and anything else the survivors could lay hands on. Though there are several survivors still outside, the inside of the gate is guarded by a woman in a green tank-top and yoga pants with boyishly short hair. She nods at us as we come in, then continues watching the road and the forest, a large-framed Smith & Wessson revolver cradled in her lap.

Kaiyo leads me past her and through what used to be a parking lot into the building itself. The glass doors are stained with smears of dried blood and riddled with cracks. Inside a couple of yellow metal police barricades create a funnel by the entrance, and a hunting rifle waits behind the nearest of them. Throughout the rest of the room boxes, couches, filing cabinets, and bookcases stand along the walls, blocking every window. Kaiyo leads me around the barricades to a small bathroom tucked into the side of the building. It's cramped and is starting to smell, but at least there are no zombies here and the water from the sink is clean and cold. I rinse out my mouth and clean my face and hands.

I'm just finishing up when there's a gentle knock on the door. I emerge to find a woman in a rumpled police uniform standing by the door. Her badge identifies her as the sheriff. "Well hey," she says. "You alright?" I nod and she motions to me. "Then come on, I need to have a little chat with you and your friends."

I follow her back to the main room of the building. There, off to one side, Dan and Kaiyo stand waiting around the only desk in the building that isn't shoved up against a wall or braced against a window. I join them and the sheriff moves behind her desk and looks us over before she addresses us. "First those fellas Boone and Wolf, then Miss Yako here, and now you two." She runs a hand through her tangled black hair. "Heck if I know where you folks keep comin' from, but anyone who walks through that door alive pretty much gets my amnesty. And after what you did today savin' that ammo, well, let's just say if something in your past colors you sourly to a badge, I'd ask you to call it quits in return. We agreeable?"

Kaiyo grins broadly and nods. I do the same, without the huge grin. Dan crosses his arms and says, "Whatever."

"I guess that takes care of that," the sheriff says. She gestures at my AK47, slung across my back. "Now I can see you're armed—leastwise two of you are and Miss Yako's got an impressive alternative. I won't kick up a fuss about it. Straight truth is, you'll need to be. Heaven knows, if there was ever a time and a place for a right to bear 'em, you're lookin' at it. All I ask is that you don't go 'round thinkin' your deputized or such, and that you share any ammo you got on you. That load you brought in helped, but the way things are goin' we're gonna be out again real quick."

She looks at me expectantly and I shift my feet, uncomfortable at being put on the spot and suddenly aware of how little I prepared for something like this. "I…uh, I can't," I say.

"She doesn't use ammunition," says Kaiyo. "Her guns shoot magic."

"Real subtle there, Kaiyo," Dan mutters.

"Thanks!" she says brightly.

"I've seen stranger these past few days." The sheriff shakes her head. "Well then, I'm Helen Bannerman, and this down-home little state-of-emergency is what's left of my jurisdiction," she says, waving a hand over the barricaded police station.

I look around me. "What about the rest of the town?" I ask.

Bannerman shakes her head. "It's pretty much all zombie territory now. Oh sure, we tried to hold as much of the town as we could, at first: more out of nostalgia than any civil defense plan. That all went the way of the dinosaurs a couple days ago when it became apparent that these walking dead didn't intend to ever stay dead, you know? Fortunately Andy and Moose got this barricade set up and we been holed up in here ever since."

"What the hell happened? There used to be fifteen hundred people here, plus a school for people with, you know, _talents_," says Dan.

"I can tell you what I've seen and heard, but that's about it," she says. "As for makin' sense of it all—Well, I don't mind telling you this makes no damn sense to me, much as I hate to be the one drawing a blank on Final Jeopardy." She puts her hands on her hips. "It all started about three days ago. I was up at the old lighthouse down by Dagon Bay, checkin' in on Sam Krieg—Maine's bestselling export."

"Sam Krieg?" I repeat. The name sounds familiar for some reason.

"Oh, yeah," she says proudly. "_The Lighthouse_, _The Undead_, _The Resident Horror_, _Marked_…all that. He's no Steven King, but he's close enough. Over a hundred million copies sold, they say." She smirks. "Surprised? Well, we do our fancy book-learnin' 'round these parts, too."

"Sorry, I'm not really into horror," I say. I don't think I'll ever be, especially since now the horror stories would seem too much like real life.

"Can't say as I am neither," Bannerman admits. "Never cared much for the stories, nor the man himself: wavin' a rifle around in a dressing-gown, juiced up, heck of a disturbance of the peace!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he's an ass," Dan says and makes a rolling gesture with his hands. "Could we move along? The local apocalypse won't wait forever and the people I work for have a right to know why."

"And just who do you work for, if you don't mind me askin'?"

"He's with the—_Oww!_" Kaiyo cuts off as Dan elbows her sharply.

"That's for me to know, you to not find out, understand?" Dan says. "All you need to know is that my client is buddy-buddy with the DoD, the CIA, the CDC, the NRA, NPR, and Disneyland. You tell me what I need to know, and maybe—just maybe—you won't be any more fucked here than you are already."

Bannerman huffs. "Figures. I was never invited to the midnight meetings at town hall. Guess I'm all thumbs when it comes to the secret handshakes."

Dan snaps his fingers impatiently.

"Right, right! So there I was, up in the old lighthouse with Mr. Sam Krieg, right? Then this fog comes in, black like ink—like somebody's fountain pen up and exploded. It covered everything. We could watch it from up on the lighthouse. I was lucky to be there, I guess. When it rolled out, most of the folks were gone." She shook her head. "Sam said it was 'goddamn manna from heaven' and wanted to write it all down. I left him magnuming that opus and high-tailed it back to town, started takin' stock of our situation. We got a few folks holdin' out around town and across the island. A few tried to leave and that…that didn't end so well, judgin' from the screamin' we heard. The fog's still out there, circlin' all 'round the island like a prison. Nobody else has tried to leave since."

"And the zombies?" Kaiyo asks.

"They came the next morning," the Sheriff says. "All those folks that went out with the fog came back the next day, only they came back well, dead—err, undead, if you get my meaning." She shakes her head and looks down. "That fog and the things that came back from it, they didn't pick and choose when they came in. Most folks didn't stand a chance."

"What about survivors?" I ask.

"I'm keepin' a list here," she says, tapping a multi-page computer printout tacked to a bulletin board behind her desk. It's a list of names and addresses under the header _Known Survivors_. Some of the names are checked off, maybe a couple dozen. Others have been crossed off and a few remain unmarked. "Check means we found 'em and they're alright, no check means they're still at large, and, well, you can guess the rest."

I try to swallow the lump in my throat. There must be nearly fifty names crossed off on that list.

"I've only seen eight of you here," Kaiyo says. "Where are the others?"

"We got 'em holed up around town an' west along the highway," she says. "There are a few safe places. Red's shack at Tolba Bay, the Innsmouth Academy, the Wabanaki Indian grounds—those should still be safe. We got some holdouts elsewhere to, people who get by on their resources even if their location ain't so good. Henry has his Word of God, that Rogêt woman has her crystal ball, and Norma out on the point's got a 12-gauge. They were all there and fine last I checked and I'm an optimist. You ask me who wins, undead hoard or Norma Creed, and my money's on Norma."

"Have you heard anything more specific on the situation at Innsmouth?" Dan asks. "My client has…sensitive interests there, if you take my meaning."

The sheriff shrugs. "Can't say as I have. I visited 'em when this all started, and Mr. Montag gave me the usual run-around and sent me off. You know, private boarding school, with an emphasis on _private_."

"I guess I'll just have to check it out myself," says Dan.

Kaiyo brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "You might want to rethink that," she says. "Remember all those zombies we just killed outside? They'll be back up in a few hours."

"Yeah, and if you're planning on striking out of town, Kingsmouth hospitality dictates I gotta set you right," says Bannerman. "I need you to keep this on the low-down, but there's worse out there than our undead problem. Worse than anything that shuffles on two legs, that's for sure."

"What sort of things?" I ask.

Bannerman shrugs. "I'm about as pleased as can be that I didn't catch a better look. Could be the kinda thing that gives a nightmare nightmares, if you know what I mean. You wanna stay in the light, keep out of the trees, out of the fog. The town's dangerous, sure, but the road's worse, as you found out, and from what I hear things have pretty much gone to hell on the other side of the tunnel to the southern coast."

"It would be a really bad idea to strike out on our own without knowing more about the situation first," I argue. _Also, it would leave these people completely defenseless_.

Dan glares at me, then bows his head and says, "Fuck! Fine, I'll stay for now, but once we get an idea what the fuck is going on in this place, I'm heading to Innsmouth."

"Aww, worried about the little prep school that the Illumi—_oww!_" Kaiyo teases, till Dan elbows her again.

"To tell the truth, I'd be mighty obliged for you stickin' around," Bannerman says, ignoring the exchange. "Miss Yako here's right about the nature of our zombie problem. Once down, they won't stay down, and we'd appreciate some help once they get back up. Also, we got ourselves a supply problem. That ammo you brought in was a godsend, but we're goin' through bullets like candy at Halloween. Also, we got all these folks as good as locked in here—and no sleepin' it off for the morning either. We tried to bring what we could when we fell back behind the barricades but, well, we got a lot of mouths to feed and grocery shoppin' wasn't exactly a priority."

"You mean you're out of food?" Dan hides his head in his hands. "Fuck me, the zombie apocalypse is here and I'm going to starve to death."

"Well, Andy finds what he can, but honestly we need him here, and with the police cruisers stuck proppin' up the barricades, well… Let's just say the way things are headed I see us outlasting our supplies, though not by much, if it comes to that."

"What can I do?" I ask.

"If you can do it without gettin' hurt, poke around town a bit and bring back the essentials. Canned food, ammunition, first aid, and a little hardware to keep everything running," says Bannerman. "We can call it _requisitioning_. I don't think the store owners are gonna be writin' this one off as an act of God."

"Great," Dan says sarcastically. "You go grocery shopping, we'll deal with the zombies."

I ignore him. "I'll see what I can find," I promise Bannerman.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> The time in this episode is based on the in-game time in my screenshots as I completed this level. In the game the road to Kingsmouth is long, but not nearly so long that it should take over an hour to drive, even slowly. The in-game clock is just fast.

The _Kingsmouth Dead_ sign is in the game and also features in the loading screen for the Kingsmouth area. The layout of the land south of the Sheriff's Office is also fairly true to the game, though the huge hoard of zombies stampeding off the hill is not (that would _not_ be a fun surprise for a new player!).

Several skills from the game feature here. Chris demonstrates the pistol skills "Magnum" and "Shootout"—the first of which allows basic pistol attacks to weaken enemies and the second is the one that involves holding hands crossed wrist down while firing both guns. In real life with real firearms this would probably be a terrible idea (_DO __NOT __TRY __ANYTHING __YOU __READ __IN __THIS __STORY __AT__ HOME!_), but it works in the game. Kaiyo demonstrates a couple chain attacks, "Electrical Storm" and "Infection." While the portrayal of the first is fairly accurate, "Infection" has nothing to do with a homing blood-mist, it simply causes a damaging red line to jump between enemies, but I didn't think that looked cool enough, so here you go. In game, much to my delight, these attacks really are extremely effective against the "Returned Townie" zombies players encounter in Kingsmouth. "Electrical Storm" is pretty much a 1-hit-kill for up to 5 zombies and two shots of "Infection" have a similar effect and can easily be landed before the zombies can come within range for their own attacks. The game also has a number of NPCs around the Sheriff's office (including one that looks sort of like the woman described cradling the revolver) who function to protect the area for players, engaging and killing any zombies who pass into their range.

There are some differences of course. Sheriff Bannerman's dialogue is pulled from her introductory cutscene, her cutscene for the "Supply Run" mission, and several of her in-game dialogue options, but there are other differences as well. The number of survivors is probably the biggest. In game there are 4 interactable NPCs in this area (Dr Bannerman, Sheriff Bannerman, Andy, and Moose), one policeman on each of the compound's two gates and two more on the roof, an armed civilian at each gate plus two more in the parking lot and two more sleeping inside, and finally one patient that Dr Bannerman is working on for a total of 15 survivors. The Illuminati mission report for "Supply Run" indicates that Kingsmouth's pre-Fog population was 1,547 and that they estimate 98% of the population was turned into zombies. That makes for only 30 survivors of the Fog, most of whom are accounted for as living NPCs in the game in town, leaving practically no room for out-of-town survivors in that figure or for the dozens of bodies littering the streets of people who avoided being turned into zombies only to be killed and eaten by them. Because of that and for the simplicity of having fewer characters to deal with, I lowered the number in the Sheriff's Office to something more manageable.

Sam Kreig is a character in the game that players meet later and the titles of his books are taken from the quest "Life Imitating Art," where players interact with several of his novels. While Bannerman brushes off the connection to Steven King, I personally think it's there, and not just in the character of Kreig. There are several references to King's work, including the name of the town (_Kings_mouth, the Overlook Motel later on in the game, etc). Kingsmouth also contains streets named "Lovecraft" and "Poe." That of course brings us to Innsmouth Academy (Innsmouth, Massachusetts was the setting for one of Lovecraft's stories), which in game is a preppy boarding school secretly run by the Illuminati.


	8. Supply Run

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

* * *

><p><strong><em> Supply Run<em>**

_Thursday, September 26, 9:58AM_  
><em>Sheriff's Office, Kingsmouth, Maine<em>

* * *

><p>I empty my backpack and Sheriff Bannerman locks up my things in the safe behind her desk. It's the best solution. I can't very well carry back any supplies I find for the Kingsmouth survivors if my backpack is stuffed with all my luggage. I feel almost naked without my things, though—well, there is one thing I don't miss. I hand it over to Bannerman before she closes the safe. It's my first aid kit. "You'll need this more than I will," I say.<p>

"You sure? It gets mighty rough out there," Bannerman warns.

I nod. My anima-leeching spell will serve me far better than bandaids. The survivors will have more use for them. "I'm sure," I say.

Bannerman shrugs. "Alright," she says. "I'll make sure this gets to the Doctor, and don't think we aren't grateful." She pauses. "Anything else you need before you go?"

"Just two things," I say. "The first is to make a couple phone calls, somewhere private."

"That bathroom where you washed up's about as private as we got right now, and if you can get a signal out to whoever sent you, more power to you. Every phone or radio in town just gets static ever since the Fog rolled in," Bannerman says. "What's the second thing?"

"I need to know where I'm going," I say. "Is there a Wal-Mart or a grocery store…"

Bannerman cuts me off with a chuckle, then shakes her head. "Sorry if I wasn't clear before, Miss, but we are out in the sticks here. We got a few local places, but the nearest supermarket's on the mainland, and well…ain't no gettin' there till the Fog's cleared up! Your best bet's to check the local yellow pages and see who'd have what we need, then go there."

She points to a payphone on the wall, with a phone book underneath it. It also happens to be right next to the place where Kaiyo settled down after our talk. She has that big leather-bound book open in front of her and she's reading from it, mouthing words that don't look like English, or any other language I recognize. From that and from the unfocused look in her eyes, I'm pretty sure I don't want to disturb her right now.

"I'll, uh, I'll just make that call," I say, and head into the bathroom. I close the door behind me and pull out the phone, dialing Sonnac.

Again, he picks up on the first ring. I begin to realize just how high of a priority my mission is. "Chris," he says. "I presume you have more information."

"Yes, but I'm not sure how much it helps," I say. "Kaiyo, MacFadden, and I have relocated to Kingsmouth's sheriff office. There're eight survivors here, and they need our help."

"This is not—"

"A rescue operation, I know," I say. "But, sir, these people are innocent. Couldn't we evacuate some of them?"

"I'm afraid that's impossible," says Sonnac.

"But—"

"I'm not trying to be difficult, Chris. I hope you appreciate that. But at the moment there is no where for any survivors of Solomon Island to go. The only way on or off of that island, as far as we know, is Agartha. Its paths are not open to the uninitiated, those who have not been touched by magic. To them, the portals to Agartha simply don't exist," he explains. "They are trapped on the island, and there is nothing we can do to save them apart from discovering what has happened on the island and how to stop it. Do you understand?"

I lower my head. "I understand," I say.

"Good," says Sonnac. "Are those eight survivors the only ones you've located so far?"

"Yes," I say. "Most of the townspeople seem to have been turned into zombies." I then relate the story of the Fog that Sheriff Bannerman told us. I also tell him about the zombies we encountered on the road, including the huge one Dan and I killed.

"An excellent, if macabre, report," Sonnac says when I'm done. "Unfortunately it really only confirms what we already know. It seems Boone's earlier assessment was spot on: something brought that black fog to Solomon Island, and whatever it was is still around. Finding it is your top priority. I'll have our researchers looking at the particular varieties of undead you mentioned, as trying to decipher the identity and _reason d'être_ of this black fog. In the meantime, I would definitely suggest avoiding contact with it."

"I will," I say quickly. I have no desire to find out what the Fog does or whether or not I can survive it! "The survivors have asked me to help them gather supplies," I add after a moment. "I promised I would."

Sonnac sighs. "Aiding the locals in the face of the inevitable…"

"Sorry, sir, but I _did_ promise," I say. "I try to keep my promises."

"No, it's quite alright," Sonnac says. "Your tenacity is admirable, though perhaps a bit blue-eyed. However, as you have no leads at the present, aiding the locals is quite permissible. It may also give you a better idea of the town's layout and current situation. In other words, provided you're careful about it and don't put it before your mission in priority and import, it cannot hurt."

"Thanks," I say. Something about what he said about having no leads bothers me though. "There was something Dan mentioned when we were talking to the Sheriff. He asked about a private school called Innsmouth Academy. From the way he talked, they had close ties to the Illuminati and his boss was curious about them."

"Yes, the school is not unknown to us," Sonnac says. "Definite Illuminati ties, though not an official part of their organization. It's doubtful that Innsmouth is the epicenter of this tragedy, however. They have been the center of several occult disasters before, on a smaller scale, and the Illuminati reaction has always been swift and direct. Now, however, they are as uncertain and blind as we are. Some other secret of theirs, buried on the island, has more likely come back to haunt them. Nevertheless, it is as good a lead as any, if explorations of Kingsmouth itself turn up nothing. If you like, I'll pass the information along to your brother for further research."

"I'd like that very much," I say, "though I'm not sure how Micah will react to receiving a text from a Templar."

"If your confidence in him is any indication, he'll handle it quite well," says Sonnac. "Besides, it's high time we made more direct contact, and gauge his interest in the Secret World. There is something I wanted to send to you, however, if you still have your send-box."

"I still have it," I say. It's locked up with the rest of my stuff, but I still have it.

"Good, I'm sending you a piece of equipment you should find useful," says Sonnac. "It seemed appropriate, given the sort of opposition you've encountered so far—a classic weapon for the apocalypse, you might say. You should find it there shortly after this conversation ends. I won't keep you longer. Be careful."

"I will be," I promise, then the call ends. I put my phone away and come back out of the bathroom. I go looking for Sheriff Bannerman, so I can get back into the safe to see what Sonnac sent me. If it's something specifically for zombies, it should definitely be helpful.

I find Bannerman standing beside a doctor in a white lab coat with dark brown hair. She's helping him unroll bandages from my first aid kit while he prepares to change a bandage wrapped around a black-haired man's muscular torso. I clear my throat. "Um, Sheriff, could I get into the safe again? I, uh, forgot something," I say.

She smirks, then pats the doctor's arm, assuring him she'll be back in a minute. She follows me back to the safe and helps me open it. "What'd you need?"

"Just this," I say, pulling out the wooden send-box. It's heavier than it used to be. I open it up, careful not to turn the key, and gasp. Inside is a black, 12-gauge shotgun, a stockless tactical model which I don't recognize. There's also a note. _The Brigadier tells me your work with a shotgun was impressive, for a beginner, and I am certain you shall grow to be an expert quickly. Best Regards, R. Sonnac._

"You were just keepin' that in a box?" Bannerman asks, arching an eyebrow.

"I forgot about it," I lie, removing the shotgun and closing the box again. I let the Sheriff return it to the safe while I turn my attention to the payphone. Kaiyo has gone, so I can get at the phone book now. "I'll start looking for supplies now," I tell Bannerman.

"Be careful out there," she says, then she leaves me to return to the doctor.

I grab the phone book and open it to the yellow pages. Emphasis on _pages_: there only seems to be a half dozen of them, and that's including sections under the headings _Blue Mountain Historical District_, _Savage Coast Recreational Area_, and _The Mainland_. The section for Kingsmouth businesses and services consists of exactly two pages, and only one side of each of those pages is used—even counting several sizable ads and generously large print. And I thought _my_ hometown was small!

I search through the entries. _Flagg's Pharmacy _seems like a good place for restocking the survivors' medical supplies, since I'm sure my first aid kit won't last them very long. It's on Main Street. I look for other entries on Main Street. There's _The Soup Kitchen_ and _Sunshine Deli_, as well as _Susie's Diner_. All of them look like good prospects for scavenging food. There's also _Call of the Wild_, which could be a restaurant—the entry is kind of ambiguous. The bottom of the page has an ad for _Creed Bros. Hardware Supplies_. I'm sure I could find something there useful to helping keep the barricade up.

The question is: where is Main Street? I rifle through the phone book and a map falls out. It's a large full color map of Solomon Island with whimsical illustrations depicting the locations of various points of interest. For example, the Sheriff's Office of Kingsmouth is depicted as a giant silver badge perched in the corner of the town. The overwhelming majority of the island's buildings seem to be clustered in three blocks bordering Fletcher Bay. I look at the street names. According to this, I'm on the corner of Solomon Road and Arkham Avenue, and Main Street is the third street down along Arkham Avenue, right next to the church. That shouldn't be too difficult to find.

I fold the map carefully and tuck it into my pocket. I check to make sure both my pistols are in their holsters and throw my assault rifle over my shoulder, on top of my empty backpack. Then I cradle my new shotgun in my hands and head back outside.

I take a moment to orient myself. On the map, Solomon Road seemed to be the name of the highway Dan and I came in on. Working off that assumption, Arkham Avenue should be on the opposite side of the survivors' compound. I wander over in that direction and find a gate in the barricade guarded by a black policeman armed with an M16. He nods to me. "Going out?" he asks. I nod and he opens the makeshift gate with one hand. "Sheriff told me to expect you. Be careful out there, Miss!"

I mutter something in acknowledgement as I step through the gate. In all honesty I have to admit that I'm too nervous to know what I just said. I try to remind myself that I've faced down dozens of zombies already this morning, but none of that was alone. Also the woodlands are somehow more familiar than the town full of strange houses and shops I now find myself in. There are white picket fences framing pastel-colored Victorian homes with yards full of orange leaves. Here and there storefronts blend seamlessly into the community. It seems like this was a nice little community, but still the sort of place where a tourist like me could get easily lost.

Now the beauty is just a scab over a horrible ugliness. I remember what the Sheriff told us, about how most of the people who lived in those houses followed the Fog into the sea and came back as zombies. I can hear them, a cacophony of strangled, inhuman screams echoing through the deserted streets, seemingly coming from every direction at once. For all I know, they are. I advance slowly, shotgun ready and eyes scanning everything.

A raven pecks at a jacket-covered corpse in the middle of the street. I step around it and the bird continues pecking, ignoring me completely. A little further down the road I pass a white sedan that's crashed into a light pole. Further on there's a red pickup truck sitting abandoned in an intersection. It's as I'm approaching the truck that I see my first group of zombies. It's a large group, nearly a dozen. Half of them are standing around or shuffling listlessly while the others claw and chew at something down on the ground beside an abandoned motor-scooter: probably the motor-scooter's owner. There's nothing I can do for their victim now. They stand just past the intersection and the truck, some of them straying occasionally into the street. I don't want to confront that many zombies—not alone. I stop on my side of the intersection, watching them, but they don't seem to be aware of me. I pull the map from my pocket and consult it. Kingsmouth seems to be laid out like a grid in this part of town, and according to the map I'm at the intersection of Arkham and Lovecraft Lane. I check the street signs and they agree. Looking back at the map I see that Lovecraft joins up with Belmont Avenue just before reaching the bay, and that I can go one block over on Belmont to reach Main Street—without having to go past this group of zombies.

I fold the map carefully, check the zombies once more (still no reaction to me), and then turn down Lovecraft Lane, down the hill and toward the sea. I get my first glimpse of the Fog from here. It doesn't seem like much from here, just a really dark fog down on the horizon, looming over the waves: creepy, but not terribly unnatural. I don't focus on it, though. There are still zombies in this part of the town. Stepping around a Cadillac that crashed into a tree I notice a trio of zombies feeding on a mutilated corpse in someone's yard. There's a white picket fence between them and me, though, and they don't seem to notice me. I continue on down until I reach the corner, where Lovecraft Lane and Belmont meet. An abandoned sleek red sedan partially blocks the intersection, compelling anyone who wishes to pass on toward Main Street (like a certain English-lit-major-turned-Templar) through a space only a couple yards across between the car and a white picket fence. That space is filled with zombies. Two of them are fighting over a dismembered arm, tugging on it and screaming at each other while the third shuffles in slow circles. I could hop the fence to try and go around them, but the way the circling zombie stops and turns its dead eyes on me as I approach tells me that such a sudden movement would surely draw the zombies' attention. I tighten my grip on my shotgun. I'm going to have to fight my way through this group.

Gunshots echo from the Sheriff's Office a block and a half away, but the zombies in front of me don't react. _They're attracted to noises, but only over a limited range_, I realize. That explains why the small hoard Dan and I caught in a gas explosion didn't react to me shooting up the first group of zombies I met. It also gives me hope. If I gun down this little group on the street corner, the other zombies up the street probably won't even notice.

I step closer to the trio of zombies on the corner and the circling one's eyes lock on me. It makes a gurgling, growling noise and the other two drop the dismembered arm and turn toward me. All three of them charge. I quickly remember my shotgun training. I angle the barrel toward the ground and fire. A wave of flame rolls out of the shotgun, engulfing and charring the zombies' legs. They howl, hands clawing the air, but they can't reach me and their legs can barely move. I cock the shot gun and blast each zombie in the head in turn. As the last one falls I look quickly around, checking for other zombies. There are none. I step past the corpses of the three I killed and the abandoned car and find myself on the street overlooking the bay.

That's when I _really_ see the Fog. It stretches as far as the eye can see over the gray waters of the ocean. The Fog itself is not just dark, it's black, and I can see…threads of something even darker racing through it as it slowly swirls, waiting. I shiver and turn away. Somehow even the undead townspeople are less intimidating than that deep, swirling blackness that obliterates the horizon.

It's not far from the street corner to Susie's Diner. The building is unmistakable, chrome-plated roof shining in the autumn sun. Cool rock music rolls from the open door. I think I recognize the song: "Devil in Disguise" by Elvis Presley—my Dad's a fan. It looks exactly like a 50's-style diner in my home town, except Susie's has a giant cutout sign featuring neon lobsters mounted on top of the roof. I see no sign of zombies, though, so I enter carefully.

The smell hits me first: the rancid stench of rotten meat. Inside the diner the door to the bathroom has been ripped from its hinges. Inside everything in the tiny room was smeared with blood. I shiver and scan the rest of the room, but aside from a few broken windows and an overturned barstool the rest of the room looks normal. On the diner's sound system, Elvis is just finishing one of the choruses of "Devil in Disguise," starting into the quieter main verse. I step further into the abandoned diner, wondering whether the owner would have kept her canned food stores in the back or behind the bar.

That's when I hear the scratching noise, the sound of something cutting, the sound of greedy chewing. I hadn't noticed it until the music became softer, but now fear makes the sound ring in my ears. There is a zombie somewhere in this diner with me. I tip-toe forward, turning slowly around. The chorus begins again, covering any sound of my advance. Then I spot her, and I freeze. The zombie is behind the bar, crouched possessively over a body in a shredded and bloody uniform. She isn't like other zombies I've seen. She's tall, long limbed, her blue jeans and orange jacket clearly too small for her frame as it is now. Her hands don't end in death-pale fingers, they end in gray two-inch talons. Her back is toward me and she seems to be absorbed in her meal, but I can't trust her to remain that way forever.

I glance down at my shotgun and give a small shake of my head. I don't want this zombie getting anywhere near me, and I'm not as practiced with the shotgun as I am with my other weapons. I lay the shotgun down on one of the padded barstools just as Elvis starts singing "Blue Suede Shoes." I reach back and grab my assault rifle. I can't count on one quick burst putting down this zombie, so I decide it's time to see if I can repeat my grenade-launcher spell from earlier. By the time Elvis sings "go, cat, go" I have the grenade launcher angled toward the zombie and my _anima_ is focused. I pull the trigger. Blue light arcs at the zombie and explodes. It screams, raising its charred limbs to its face before turning to me. Its lone, dead eye regards me with menace as it rises to its feet more quickly that I would have thought possible. There's no time for hesitation, though. I shoulder my rifle and open fire. My shots make the zombie stagger. It tries to scramble over the bar but the burns and my repeated three-round bursts cause it to fall back behind the counter. It gives a shrill scream, so piercing I almost have to cover my ears, then it starts going around the bar where there's a gap for employees on the far side. Its long strides swallow the distance. I try for a headshot, but miss—it's moving too fast! The zombie comes around the corner and starts coming for me, arms extended, talons ready to shred me. _Oh-God-oh-God!_ my thoughts race in frantic prayer. I fire again, only a few yards away. This time my shots hit. It's not a clean forehead shot like I'd wanted, but the _anima_ rounds rip through the lower half of the zombie's face and into its neck. Its body goes limp and falls sideways, slamming its head against a table on its way down. Then it's on the floor in front of me, body motionless, but its lone eye still swiveling in its socket, paralyzed, but not dead (or _re_-dead in its case). I flip the selector to full-auto and fire a long burst into the undead horror's forehead. After that, it's completely still. For a moment, I sigh in relief.

The moment is quickly over. In the next instant, four zombies come charging in through the opposite door, running straight at me. I wonder if it was my shots that summoned them or the high-pitched scream of the long-limbed zombie did that. There's no time to sort it out now and there's certainly not time to pick them all off with my rifle. I let it drop and grab my shotgun, firing the flame spell at the tile floor in front of the zombies before the shotgun's even fully off the barstool. The zombies charge turns into a limping contest. I pump the shotgun and pick them off with headshots. When the last of them falls I check the door to the back room (locked) and close both the outside doors, finally satisfied that I'm alone in the restaurant.

I set the shotgun down on the bar, within easy reach, and start looking through the cabinets behind the bar—doing my best to ignore the gruesome remains the long-limbed zombie was eating. There's some canned food back here, preserved fruit mostly. I unzip my backpack and pack in as many of the cans as I can find. It's only a little over a dozen, but its more than enough to make my backpack heavy when I put it on again. _This should last the survivors a while_, I think. _At least, I hope so_. I pick up my shotgun again and exit the diner through the far door, coming out on Main Street.

Across the street, I can see the sign for "The Call of the Wild." Metal shutters protect the storefront but a zombie has managed to peel one of them back and gotten itself stuck halfway through the window. I stow my shotgun temporarily in the tight space between my laden backpack and my back and switch to my AK-47. The zombie twitches as my shots slam into it. It starts to withdraw itself only to take my second burst in the back of the head. It topples to the sidewalk. I go over to find out what it thought was so interesting. The only things I see through the shutter is a pair of ammo cans. The lights are off inside the store. "Is there anyone in here?" I call, but no one answers. I'm unwilling to try entering the store lest I become stuck like the zombie did…or have a zombie sneak up behind me…or find out that whatever's lurking in this store is worse than the long-limbed zombie in the diner. Instead I load one of the ammo cans into my backpack (filling its main pocket) and carry the other by hand, leaving me with only one free hand to operate my shotgun. It's not ideal, but I know the survivors will need every bullet I can find.

I head up the street, passing several restaurants, including _The Soup Kitchen_. It might be worth revisiting these places on a future supply run, but for now my backpack is stuffed. When I come to the storefront of Creed Bros. Hardware Supply I decide to take a peek inside, just to see what's available for future scavenging. I set the ammo can down by the door and reach for the knob. The hinges give the screech of un-oiled metal, followed by some kind of loud ratcheting sound. I cringe. I poke my head around the door, hoping I didn't just disturb some zombie waiting for me inside. I don't see one. Instead I see a large rusty engine standing behind the door, its gears grinding. It appears to be the actual source of the ratcheting sounds.

Then I realize that the rusty engine is standing on two thick metal legs, and equipped with two metal arms. One of those arms ends in a buzzsaw. Then the saw starts spinning up and the arm starts moving. I cry out and jump back just in time to avoid a slashing attack from the mechanical arm. The saw cuts into the wood before the door is tossed aside, leaving an opening for the rusted robot to walk out onto the street. I point my shotgun at the ground in front of it and fire off a wave of flame, hoping to slow it down, but the flame rolls harmlessly off rusty metal plates. Then I see a lighter ignite at the end of the robot's other arm, in front of a nozzle that leads to a gas tank. Too late I realize I'm not the only one trying to use fire in this fight.

I manage to jump back, but it's not enough. The sweep of the flamethrower catches me. I feel agony across the whole front of my chest. I don't have to look to know I'm on fire. I drop my shotgun and wriggle out of my backpack. I fall to the asphalt, rolling to put out the flames. Looking down I see that most of them are out, but a few tongues of fire linger. I swat them out with my arm. The end result is that I'm extinguished and alive, but I can see my skin is charred on the right side of my chest and my left hand is red and blistered. All of it hurts more than words can describe, which is saying a lot, coming from me. I feel like screaming and crying, but I hear the robot stomping toward me and I remember the Brigadier's training. It doesn't seem too realistic at all now.

I grab my AK-47 one-handed out of habit and aim it at the advancing automaton. I have no idea if this spell will even work on a robot, but I have to try. If I don't, it'll finish me. I fire an explosive round, and to my surprise get back a wash of _anima_. I direct it to my wounds while I scramble to my feet, firing again and again. Sparks fly from the inside of the motor with each hit and the robot's advance is hesitant. That gives me the time I need. I feel _anima_ tingling across my body, healing my burns. By the time the robot is close enough to use its flamethrower again, I am ready. I roll along the road, under the sweeping flames. The robot tries to catch me with its buzzsaw arm, but the spinning disk bites into the asphalt instead. By the time it turns back around, I already have my shotgun up and gripped in one hand. I infuse it with a slug of fire and aim it at the fuel tank for the robot's flamethrower. "Your turn," I growl, then I pull the trigger. Like it did in practice, the shotgun kicks hard enough that it flies from my hand, but unlike in practice the fireball it spits out here is enough to punch through the robot's fuel tank and ignite it. I jump back and shield my face as the gas explodes, leaving the robot flaming, smoking and sparking. It stands there for a moment longer, its engine sputtering, then the gears grind to a halt and it topples in the middle of the street.

I stand up and quickly retrieve my shotgun, backpack, and the ammo can I left by the door. I don't dare go inside the hardware store, lest another one of those things is inside waiting for me. As it is, I seem to be alone in the street, which is good. I take stock of the damage. My hand looks fine and my skin is only a little pink and tender where I burned it on my chest. My favorite black-and-white striped hoodie, however, is a goner. A large hole has been burned in the fabric, and in my shirt beneath. My bra is toast, too. I groan and silently wish my healing spell fixed clothes too.

My first instinct is to cover up, so I don't have a nipple hanging in the breeze. Flagg's Pharmacy probably has some cloth bandages I could use as a makeshift bra. I try the door, but it's locked and I don't especially want to try blasting the door open only to find yet another horror waiting inside for me. _Just go back to the Sheriff's Office and change there_, I tell myself. _It's the zombie apocalypse, no one is going to care if you're showing a little boob_.

I leave Main Street and start heading back to the Sheriff's Office along Arkham Avenue (whoever named these streets had a strange sense of humor). The group of zombies I'd avoided earlier near Lovecraft Lane are all gone now, and I'm grateful. It means I have a straight shot for the Sheriff's Office. I tuck my shotgun behind my back and cross my right arm across my breasts, holding what remains of my hoodie closed. It may be the apocalypse, but I still want to keep my modesty.

The gate opens in front of me and I head for it at a trot. Then suddenly the black officer behind the gate shouts, "Get down!" and points his rifle at me. _Not at me, at something behind me!_ I duck. The rifle cracks twice. A zombie behind me moans and falls, not more than two yards away. I had no idea it was even there.

I grab my shotgun and scan the street for more, but I don't see any. I turn around quickly and hurry through the gate. As the officer closes it behind me, survivors gather around. Dan is among them. He gives a wolf-whistle and grins. "Fuck yeah! I dig the new look, Chris-babe!" he yells.

I cross my arm across my chest quickly and give him a glare that says, _Once I'm done changing, I will end you_. He doesn't seem to get the hint and merely laughs.

"Hey, let's all—let's all just give Miss Warden some space, okay?" says Deputy Andy, stepping between me and Dan. "It's the end of the world and all that, right?...So, accidents happen." He looks around the crowd. "Somebody give her a coat!"

A heavyset man with a graying beard peels off an army jacket, padded and covered in that new digital camouflage. He hands it to me, keeping his eyes on mine and not…on other things. I accept it. "Thank you," I say.

"You've risked your life for us twice, little lady," he says. "Least I could do."

I turn my back to the crowd, facing the barricade, and set down my backpack and the rest of my gear, changing into the surplus coat instead. It's much too big for me, but with the sleeves rolled up it's manageable—and with the front zipped up there's nothing for sick Dan MacFadden to gawk at!

I turn back around to find that Andy is already leading the survivors in going through the supplies I brought back, ferrying them into the Sheriff's Office mostly. As they work, the Sheriff herself comes out to greet me. "Made it back, and in one piece, too," she remarks, smiling at me. She turns to watch one of the survivors trundle past with a load of canned food. "Quite a haul, too. That should leave us set up well enough for the present."

"Glad I could help," I say. "Is everything still alright here? Have the zombies we killed on our way in started coming back yet?"

"They're re-animating one at a time, so it's no big problem," Kaiyo says brightly, skipping through the parking lot to join us. "We just send Dan out there to whack 'em on the head and then we're good for another half hour or so."

"We could just as easily send one of the survivors with a shovel," Dan grumbles.

"But that wouldn't be as fun to watch!" Kaiyo says, grinning mischeiviously. Then she turns to Bannerman and her face becomes serious. "Miss Sheriff, if you don't mind, the three of us need to talk. In private."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> As far as I'm aware, the game never overtly says that normal people can't use Agartha, though there seem to be several hints of this, and it does explain neatly why none of the factions are interested in even trying to rescue survivors from Solomon Island (well, it's part of the explanation: the other part being painfully clear to anyone who's completed the sidequest "That'll Leave a Mark," or tried to complete it, in any case).

Sonnac's dialogue is taken from his reply to the player's report after "For a Fistful of Zombies" and "Supply Run." The shotgun Chris receives is "12 Gauge," the QL 1 shotgun players can pick up as a reward for completing "For a Fistful of Zombies." Shotguns, of course, are the traditional weapon of the zombie apocalypse!

Sonnac references Innsmouth's troubled past. The school has been rebuilt three times over its history, at least once due to an occult disaster on grounds ("an accidental application of dimensional portals along the then theoretical "Escher Curve" [which] destroyed the elementalism lab," according to the lore). That Illuminati players aren't immediately herded that way probably indicates that the Illuminati are somehow aware that the school is a victim this time, not the cause.

Several missions require the player to check the phone book in Kingsmouth. Each mission depicts the same page from the yellow pages of the phone book (the business section) which lists pretty much every business in the town itself. It consists of a single two-page spread. All of the businesses listed in this chapter exist in-game, but "Sunshine Deli" and "The Soup Kitchen" both exist only as non-interactable storefronts. Players never see the inside of any of the other Kingsmouth stores either, with the exception of Susie's Diner. The other stores only have one or two interactable objects in front of their store for use during certain missions whereas the diner has a full interior.

The map Chris finds is meant to be the in-game map, which does have a sort of touristy feel to it, with points of interest depicted with illustrations. Of course, Chris has the full map of the _island_ whereas players can only access the map of one zone at a time. You can find player-combined maps online, however, and they seem to line up neatly enough.

The in-game town of Kingsmouth varies little from what I've depicted here. The main difference (aside from the large number of player characters roaming about, killing zombies for quests and sport) is that in game the zombies are much more evenly distributed, with groups of "Returned Townie" zombies been found in groups of 3-5 every 20 ft or so. All the places where they appear in the chapter are places they appear in game. I did inflate the size of one of the groups in order to force Chris to hit up Susie's Diner first. This is the progression of the in-game mission "Supply Run," but without a mission tracker to guide her to that specific restaurant, Chris probably would have hit up one of the other restaurants on Main Street first. That particular group of zombies at Arkham and Lovecraft (yes, the street names are real) does have a greater tendency to go after players, however, perhaps because its located so close to a main thoroughfare.

Chris' tactics for many of the enemies she encounters in this chapter are pretty much my real in-game tactics. She uses the skills "Kneecapper" (the wave of fire), "Pump Action" (basic attack), and "Out for a Kill" (the fireball attack used on the robot). These are spells Chris learned in the previous story after seeing them demonstrated during her Tokyo dream (players actually do get to use these three skills extensively during the Tokyo subways tutorial). In game I find "Kneecapper" followed by spamming "Pump Action" into a group of Returned Townie zombies tends to kill them off very quickly. If you catch all the zombies in the area of effect of "Kneecapper" you can even kill them all (as Chris does) before they come close enough to strike back. Throwing in the pistol passive "Coup de Grace" (which causes enemies to heal all of your allies near them on death) means that even if they _do_ manage to touch you, the player can end the fight at full health anyway.

There are a number of enemies that can be encountered inside Susie's Diner, including "Susie's Diner Cook," "Suisie's Diner Patron," and "Susie's Diner Waitstaff," and "Susie" herself. These seem to spawn randomly and only one will be there at a time. Each time, they will be found gnawing on the body behind the counter. Susie is the largest and most powerful of these, looking pretty much like she does in this chapter. However even she can be felled with a combination of "Slow the Advance" and "Safety Off" (Chris' three-round burst attack). Some can even be killed by the detonation of "Slow the Advance" itself. In game Susie does not have the ability to summon additional zombies (though the game has various kinds of "Ripper" zombies which do have this ability), but there's a cluster of zombies just outside the door on Main Street which players exiting Susie's Diner on that side will most likely be attacked by, and in game I did manage to get myself jumped by them right after finishing a fight with "Susie's Diner Cook" (I have fought Susie herself, but not on my first time in the diner).

The robot guardian of the hardware store is a real part of the quest, I swear! It's the "Jury-Rigged Protector" that attacks players on attempting to enter the hardware store during the quest. I was baffled by the presence of such an enemy in the middle of the zombie apocalypse at first, but now that I know more about the history of the Creed family, I think it makes more sense. Hopefully it will in time to you, too. In any case, yes, it totally has a flame thrower, and because it appears suddenly behind players who are concentrating on interacting with an object at the time, it will more than likely get to light them on fire and/or cut them. This can make it a challenging fight, and no, Chris' demonstrated stop-drop-and-roll tactics will not work in game.

Also, in-game fire damage has no effect on player character wardrobes. I debated the wardrobe damage in this one. I did want to update Chris' wardrobe at some point, but at the same time I didn't want clothing damage to be the rule of the day, and I didn't want people to think I took the same approach to my heroine here as Dan. However, going back over the action sequence I didn't see any other possible outcome. She clearly receives at least second and probably third degree burns across a significant portion of her chest. No flammable clothing covering that area would have survived (either that, or she wouldn't have had such bad burns). I did debate letting her keep the bra, but it wasn't made of asbestos, so in the end I couldn't justify it to myself.

The black policeman is one of the non-interactable NPCs at the Sheriff's Office in game that protects it from constantly-spawning zombies (much like in his second appearance in this chapter). The other survivor, the heavyset man who gives Chris his jacket, is not in the game—though his jacket is. The jacket is the "Frontline Jacket" and is rewarded to players for unlocking all inner-circle rifle abilities. Chris hasn't done that here yet, but it seemed like a convenient opportunity for her to update her wardrobe.

I apologize for this chapter taking so long! Thank you all for your patience!


	9. Teamwork

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

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><p><strong><em>Teamwork<em>**

_Thursday, September 26, 12:35PM_  
><em>Sheriff's Office, Kingsmouth, Maine<em>

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><p>While Kaiyo talks to the Sheriff about where the three of us can have a private discussion, I go to change. Andy opens the safe for me and I retrieve the white, button-up blouse the Templars gave me and a bra—my only bra now. I suppose I could always ask Sonnac to send me a new one, but asking my employer for replacement underwear isn't exactly something I'm comfortable with at this point.<p>

I lock myself in the bathroom and change. The old blouse is no great loss: it's the same one I was wearing during my final exam by Lethe and was already ruined by a hole and a large bloodstain on the lower right-hand side, in the back. The hoodie, however...I sigh. Half the front is gone to charring. There's no way it's salvageable. I'm extremely lucky that only the corner of the map in the hoodie's pocket got burned. Sadly, I fold the old black-and-white striped hoodie up and place it tenderly in the trash can. _Goodbye old friend_, I bid it. _You were warm and comfortable, and I loved you._ Then I turn away and finish dressing, putting on the borrowed over-sized army coat again (the blouse is too thin to ward off autumn chill outside). As I unlock the door again, I wonder wryly how I'll face a real loss, if I can get this sentimental about an old, sorta-ugly jacket.

When I come out of the bathroom, Kaiyo and Dan are outside waiting for me. Kaiyo grabs my hand. "Come on! Dan found us a place where we can talk privately!"

"Couldn't we just use the bathroom?" I ask, confused.

"Girls go to the bathroom in packs, not Illuminati," says Dan. "Besides, it's bugged."

"It's _bugged?!_" I say, eyes wide.

Dan rolls his eyes. "This is practically Illuminati Island," he says. "Lots of places are bugged."

"But I just changed in there!"

"Lucky break for whoever's watching then." Dan smirks. "Maybe I can get him to send me the videos."

"Do and you're dead," I warn, gritting my teeth.

"Can't we have our talk first?" Kaiyo asks, eyes pleading. Dan rolls his eyes and lets her take his hand with her free one. Then she leads us both outside and around the side of the building, under a wooden exterior staircase. There's a gap there where we can all stand between the makeshift barricade and the Sheriff's Office. Once we're all there, Kaiyo lets go of our hands, turns and tucks a strand of raven hair behind her ear. "Okay, now we can get started!"

Dan waves his hand impatiently motioning for her to continue.

"I wanted us to talk about working together," says Kaiyo.

"We are working together," says Dan. I nod in agreement.

"I mean _really_ working together," says Kaiyo. "I mean, right now, Chris wants you dead and you're being all cagey with secrets and stuff."

"I don't _really_ want him dead," I say, and it's at least mostly true—though I admit the prospect of him being in pain does cause a certain morbid satisfaction.

"I'm being straight up with you," says Dan. "I don't know anything you guys don't already know."

Kaiyo bites her lower lip, with a notably pointed tooth, and says, "Alright, if you guys don't want to play, then I guess I'll keep everything I've learned from talking with the survivors all to myself!" She closes her eyes, crosses her arms, turns, and starts to walk away.

"Hold on!" Dan says. "Maybe I was exaggerating…there are a few things I know."

"And?" Kaiyo prompts.

"…and I'm willing to share them," Dan mutters.

Kaiyo smiles and turns to me, eyes expectant.

"I promise not to kill Dan," I say, and I mean it. He may be an enormous irritant, but I don't want him dead. When Kaiyo keeps looking at me, I add, "I also won't let him die or get hurt, if I can help it."

"Good enough, under the circumstances," Kaiyo declares.

"Hey, what about you?" Dan asks.

"Oh, well, I promise not to kill any of you unless I have to," says Kaiyo. "And I'll share anything important I find out."

"Those promises seem...a little lax, by comparison," I say.

"Yeah, who's to say what's important?" Dan says.

Kaiyo wrinkles her nose. "Good point. I guess I'd just use my own judgement…unless you think the unusually dark color of the ichor in these zombies is important. Do you? I thought it might be due to contaminants, but it could also be post-mortem clotting interrupted by a reanimation spell of the Eturian Family, possibly an Aderastrium variant mixed with something more primitive and potent. According to my spellbook, it also contains about two orders of magnitude more erythropoietin than normal blood, which is probably due to drowning. And then there's the flavor—"

_Oh, God!_ I interrupt the tirade by putting a hand on the Japanese girl's shoulder. "Why don't you just use your judgment?" I suggest quickly.

Kaiyo grins at me. "Okay!"

"So, what did you learn?" Dan asks, then quickly clarifies, "Anything _important_?"

"Only a little," Kaiyo says. "I talked to the survivors and asked them, you know, how they _survived_. Turns out about half of them were like the Sheriff, out of reach of the Fog when it came, some physically and a few, like the doctor, were in places that must have been warded or had some other kind of protection, like the Wabanaki Indian grounds. All four of the others were in the fog and said they heard this sort of whispering that got into their heads and made them want to walk into the sea."

"But they resisted it?" I ask.

Kaiyo shakes her head. "A couple of them waited it out in the jail cell here in the Sheriff's Office. A guy named Bill Dexter was being put in for drinking when he and Deputy Jackson heard the whispers. The policeman was smart enough to lock himself and the other guy in and throw away the keys before the Fog got to him. The others let them out after the Fog passed. Then there was this biker, Moose, Deputy Gardener saved his life by throwing a rope around him and dragging him back to the Sheriff's Office."

"So how'd Gardener make it out?" asks Dan.

Kaiyo shrugs. "Not a clue. He said he heard the whispers, but they didn't affect him like they did the others." She purses her lips. "There's something strange about him…his blood smells _different_."

I'm about to ask how she could possibly know what his blood smells like, but then I decide I don't really want to know. Instead, I decide to report my own findings. "The Fog's still out there, just beyond the harbor. It doesn't look too weird until you get closer up, then there are these…tendrils moving though it." I shake my head and try not to shiver. "Whatever it is, it's not natural."

"No shit," says Dan. "Anything else you'd like to share, babe, like what caused your _wardrobe malfunction_?" He winks at me.

I glare at him. "I got burned by a robot with a flamethrower, alright? Leave me alone, and don't call me _babe_!"

"A robot? Like a mecha?" Kaiyo asks.

"More like a rust bucket, and not much taller than me," I say. "It was guarding the hardware store in town."

Kaiyo glances at Dan but he shrugs. "Don't look at me. We had nothing to do with this."

She glances back at me. "You said you got burned? Are you alright now?"

I nod. "I used a spell to drain _anima_ from the robot and heal my burns. I just wish it healed my clothes too."

"Hmm…there's probably a way to do that," Kaiyo says. "But that it worked at all on a robot is interesting."

"There are plenty of _anima_-powered robots," Dan counters. "My boss had me recruit a guy once who built a dozen of 'em and killed his whole fucking family."

"You _recruited_ him?" I say.

"Of course we did! We keep him hopped up on drugs, but the kid's got talent," Dan declares. "Point is, it's not all that uncommon. Pretty much anyone with enough mechanical and magical aptitude could've built one rusty guard-bot with a fucking flamethrower."

"But do you know of anyone here in Kingsmouth with that kind of power?" Kaiyo asks.

Dan frowns. "Can't say as I do, not outside of Innsmouth Academy anyway."

"And what about Innsmouth?" I say. "Why didn't you tell us about it sooner?"

"Wasn't important," Dan answers casually. "Sure, we got an alarm from it, but it was just a general alert for a perimeter breach from the outside. No clue has to what it was or how it got there. The Academy's as much a fucking victim as the rest of this island."

It lines up with Sonnac's theories, but I cross my arms, pretending to be unconvinced. "Anything _else_ you want to share with us? You know, before we figure you're holding out and decide to leave you to the zombies?" I wouldn't really do that, but the last thing I need is him bringing up some other conveniently forgotten fact—like the bathroom being bugged—when lives are at stake.

"I'm not leavin' anything out, I swear," Dan says. "We had a few places warded, like the Academy and the church here in town, but no idea if the wards held. We had a few places bugged, like the Sheriff's Office here, but all those bugs went offline when the fucking Fog rolled in. I only restored the one in the bathroom while you were out grocery shoppin' and playin' with robots." He smirks at his own joke, then continues. "There's the Idol of Nergal, but—"

"The Idol of Nergal is here?!" Kaiyo says, suddenly leaning forward. "Where is it? I've always wanted to—"

"It's in a cave somewhere, behind Illuminati wards that have got to be under a shitload of stress. There's no way you're going near that thing!" Dan says. "Last thing we need is someone like you bumping the wards over the fucking edge and this thing summoning undead all over the place, supposing it isn't already."

"Wait, this idol summons undead?" I glare at Dan. "Why didn't you tell us this before?! It could be the whole reason the Fog came here in the first place, the explanation for the whole zombie apocalypse on the Island!"

Kaiyo blinks and gives me a startled look. Dan also seems surprised. "What? No, you got it all backwards! The Fog isn't Negral's style."

"He's right," Kaiyo says. "Negral is the ancient Akkadian god of the underworld, or a demon, in your religion," she says to me. "In any case, he lost all his worshippers a few millennia ago and didn't deal with it very well."

"Went fucking paranoid," Dan explains. "Thinks the _world_ is out to get him and that stupid rock he's bound to, so whenever he can he summons undead Mesopotamian warriors from hell-knows-where and forces them to guard his sorry ass. Made for one hell of a début when we presented the find to the Council of Venice."

"Negral doesn't have the power to control anything like the Fog or even to make zombies out of local corpses," Kaiyo says.

"And even if he did he'd have them all standing around his fucking cave on fucking guard duty, not running around the island trying to kill off survivors."

Kaiyo nods and waves a hand at the island and its evident horrors. "He can't be responsible for all this, but he _is_ famous. He's even mentioned in the Bible!"

"And you're _not_ meeting him for so many reasons!" Dan insists. "First of all, living dhampir vs wards only meant to stop the fully undead. You'd short 'em out! Second, if you think Negral's crazy paranoid right now that's nothing next to the shitstorm of insanity you'll get if you put that stupid idol of his in the room with a dangerous monster like you. No offense intended."

Kaiyo smiles, and her grin shows a pair of pointed incisors behind her lips. "None taken," she says brightly.

Suddenly, there's a rap on the wall near the stairs behind us. We turn to see the Sheriff standing there next to a long-haired, bearded man in a black leather jacket. "Pardon me. Mind if we interrupt for a bit?" she asks hesitantly.

Dan glares at her and I'm a little preoccupied trying to figure out what all she heard, but Kaiyo smiles brightly and says, "Sure thing!"

"Thanks," Bannerman says. She gestures to the big man next to her. "Moose here managed to rig up a PA system and had a few parts left over. I thought you could help."

"I've still got four hundred-foot CCTV cables in good condition. I figure we rig up a few cameras at strategic places, and we got ourselves a genuine early warning system to complete this makeshift fortress of ours," says the big man, Moose—if that's really his name. "That'd free up some people from standing watch, and it would give me a chance to work on putting together an offense for these zombies."

"Don't tell me you want me to run fucking wires for you, man," Dan says. "I'm a man on a mission from a very important agency, not some shit electrician's assistant."

"_I'll_ run the wires," I volunteer, glaring at Dan.

"Actually, it's not the runnin' of wires we need, though that'd be mighty helpful. What we're missing is the cameras," says Bannerman.

Dan shakes his head. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Afraid not," says the Sheriff. "It sure wasn't in our yearly budget to put the town under martial law! No, the good ol' boys on the council were all about thrifty spending—at least above the table. Can't say as I ever got invited to the midnight meetings at town hall. Reckon I must be all thumbs when it comes to secret handshakes." She pauses. "Point is, the police department couldn't afford 'em, but some private businesses got some for security and I've got a list. We take their cameras and re-purpose them, we can make this work. Problem is gettin' out there and back. That's where you three come in."

"No, I'm not a fucking errand boy," says Dan.

"Aww, come on! It'll be fun!" Kaiyo says. "And think of the advantage this would give us! You wouldn't have to wait around here, bashing the same old zombies over and over again. Besides, I'm sure your boss would love to see the videos. _All_ our bosses would." She gives him a conspiratorial wink and dodges his attempt to elbow her in the ribs.

"I'll go," I say. "Kaiyo and I can handle it ourselves."

"And you can set up the surveillance system on the computers here," Kaiyo suggests to Dan. "You're good at that right? Computers? Surveillance?"

Dan glares at her for a moment, while she gives him a hopeful grin with head cocked and eyes wide. One fang is also visible between her lips. "Fine. I'll do it," he says at last. "Just stop giving me that look. It's fucking creepy."

Kaiyo just laughs.

"Just make sure you forward the surveillance to _everyone_," I say.

He winks at me. "Anything for you, Chris-babe."

I grit my teeth. Somehow that's more annoying than when he was swearing at me and calling me a noob.

"I'll get the cables set up," says Moose. "They'll be ready to roll out when you are."

Sheriff nods then waves to us. "Miss Yako, Miss Warden, let me show you the list I got."

We follow her back out under the exterior stairs and into the Sheriff's Office, where she opens up the phone book on the wall to the local yellow pages and circles three businesses: _Kingsmouth Savings and Loan_, _Sycoil Gas Station_, and the _Franklin Foundation Mining Museum_. "Four cables, but only three businesses," I remark.

"The Savings and Loan and the Gas Station only got one camera each, but the Museum's got a few to spare. You should be able to find plenty in good working order between the three of 'em," says Bannerman.

I nod and open up my map. "The Gas Station and the Mining Museum are both on Belmont Avenue, which runs along the harbor."

"Yeah, the Gas Station's just at the corner of Elm Street and Belmont, right down this road straight outside," says Bannerman, pointing over the barricade. "Museum's right next door. Savings and Loan is down Lovecraft, not too far from the Museum on the other side."

"Hmmm…why don't we split up?" Kaiyo suggests. "I'll go down Lovecraft, you go down Elm, and we'll meet in the middle."

I'm not very keen on splitting up and potentially facing another unexpected and terrifying opponent alone, but I'm even less keen on spending a lot of time out there hunting down cameras. I fold up the map and grab my backpack (which is once again empty). "Let's get this over with," I say.

We go to the gate again. The black policeman (who I presume is the Deputy Jackson that Kaiyo mentioned) unfastens the chain and lets us out. Kaiyo goes skipping straight down Arkham Avenue toward a small pack of zombies while I turn right to reach Elm Street. I cut through a yard with brown, bloodstained grass. Its white picket fence has been torn up to be added to the barricade, which completely blocks off this end of Elm Street and is made up of everything from road signs to deserted vehicles. There's even a rowboat propped against the fence to shore it up.

Elm Street itself is eerily deserted. The street slopes gradually down toward the sea, and nothing moves on it. Picturesque houses line the road, some even with Halloween decorations and carved pumpkins already out, but there's evidence of the disaster. Several sections of white picket fence have fallen. Halfway down the road I see a blue sedan that has been driven over a parking meter, through a fence, and into somebody's porch. Some steam is still rising from the crumpled hood, but I don't hear the engine running. I do hear zombies though. Their gargled screams echo down the street. I keep my shotgun out and ready.

A little further down from the wrecked car I find the first group of zombies. There's a body, still vaguely recognizable as that of an older woman, bent over a picket fence. A couple zombies are tearing at the bloody dirt on either side, stuffing it into their mouths, as if completely unaware of the corpse hanging between them. I avert my eyes, fight down the urge to gag, and continue down the street.

The slope becomes steeper here and I catch sight of Belmont Avenue, and the gas station. It's a large, square white building with a rather ugly yellow trim, made even more ugly by the evident smoke damage. All the windows are completely blackened with soot and gray smudges trace their way upward from every door, window, or vent from which the smoke may have escaped. The building inside must be completely gutted. I sure hope the camera wasn't in there. I sure hope it wasn't around back either. There are a group of three zombies loitering by the dumpster there.

I walk up cautiously to check the front, where a large, thick, flat metal canopy covers the gas pumps. Or what's left of them. The cause of the fire becomes evident now. There's a white sedan, badly fire-damaged, sitting in the remains of one of the gas pumps. The other pump is still standing, but everything but the frame and pipes have burned or melted away. The entire front of the station is scorched black by what must have been a terrifying fireball. I see another trio of zombies by the street, just past the end of the canopy. They're feeding on something, or someone—possibly an unfortunate victim of the blast.

Something on the canopy catches my eye, though, and I go a little further down the street, till I'm almost at the corner. Then I see it: the camera. It looks like it's intact, and it's mounted on the very front of the metal canopy, overlooking Belmont Avenue. I bite my lip. There's no way to get to it from here…but I bet if I climbed on top of the dumpster I saw in the back, I could get onto the roof pretty easily. The only problem is the zombies.

I take a deep breath and square my shoulders, reminding myself of how many zombies I've already killed today. I've lost count, actually, and that makes me somehow more uncomfortable. I remember the old man's body I saw after the fight at the Sheriff's Office, and that all of these zombies used to be people like me. _Well they're not anymore_, I remind myself then, marching toward the back of the gas station. _They're never going to laugh or cry or smile again: they're just undead monsters who want to kill you and every other living thing on the island and chew you up with their broken teeth._ That thought, and the realization that getting this camera will help the survivors of Kingsmouth stay alive, gives me the courage to come around the corner firing.

The zombies in the back don't last long. They seemingly had no idea I was there until my first shot charred their legs. Three quick blasts later they're all lying on the ground, but I have another problem. I can hear choked screams from the front of the gas station. The other zombies have been alerted. I try to scramble directly onto the dumpster, but it's too high. There's a green recycling bin next to it, though, that's shorter. I try that, clambering on top and then stepping up and over onto the lid of the large dumpster.

Then the zombies come, running around the corner and waving their arms. I'm too far off the ground to use a wave of flame from my shotgun to stop their advance, so I toss my shotgun onto the tin roof behind me and grab my assault rifle, sweeping them with automatic fire. That seems to slow them down. On scrabbles at the dumpster lid, trying to reach me, but I back away, up against the wall, and fire a burst down into his head. The other two are running back and forth in front of the dumpster, seemingly unable to make sense of the obstacle. I fire an _anima_ grenade between them and the blast causes both of them to topple.

I don't wait around for more zombies to show up. I climb up onto the tin roof and grab my shotgun. Even in late September, the metal is a little hot to the touch. I stand up on it and move quickly across the roof to the metal canopy. I can see a couple things out there. One is an ammo can, opened, with some shotgun shells scattered around it. The other is a large black hole in the canopy directly above where the car crashed. From this angle the canopy definitely looks hollow, supported only by a thin steel frame. I step out onto it gingerly, and only because the shotgun shells tell me someone else has been out on it before and it was able to take their weight—though of course, there's no sign of them now.

I collect the shells and put the ammo can in the bottom of my backpack. It's very heavy, but still manageable. There's a shotgun too, a Remington 870 like my Dad's only stockless. I check it, but it's empty. It still might be of use for the survivors, though, so I tuck it in beside the ammunition and ease out further onto the canopy.

At the edge, I look down and see the camera, mounted on a stand set into the corner. I'm going to have to undo the screws and pull it off of there without taking a fifteen-foot fall. I pull my Swiss army knife out of my pocket and lay carefully down on the edge, then scoot out till my head and arms are hanging over the camera. I pull out the little screwdriver from my pocket knife and begin carefully loosening the screws while trying very hard not to think about where I am. This becomes increasingly difficult when I get to the third screw holding the base to the metal canopy, because this one is underneath the stand, just out of my line of sight. I have to feel what I'm doing with my fingertips while keeping hold of my pocket knife in one hand and the camera and its stand in the other. Losing either at this point would be a disaster.

Finally, the last screw comes out and falls to the pavement (I managed to grab the other two, but after losing the third I decide it's not worth the hassle). I pull the camera up onto the canopy with me. It's wire trails after it, keeping me from taking it any further. Since Moose said we already have cables, I decide I don't need it. I detach it from the base of the camera and stick the camera, stand and all, in my backpack on top of the ammo box. Then I hurry off the canopy and back down to level ground. I would sigh in relief if not for the zombie corpses around me.

I head across the street, to where the map says the Mining Museum is. From this side, it looks more like a big house with a parking lot next to it, but once I'm close enough I see a large sign outside that reads _Franklin Mining Museum_. I also see Kaiyo Yako standing over the smoldering corpses of four zombies. She smiles at me. "Took you long enough! Did you find a camera, or build one from scratch?" she teases.

"It was on the roof, on an unstable and hot awning," I say, brushing the front of my jacket off.

"Well get ready, 'cause there's another roof you'll have to climb," she says, pointing to the second story of the Museum. There a security camera is mounted on the wall just above the slanted eves of the ground floor's roof, watching over the entrance.

I groan. "I hate heights," I confess.

Kaiyo smirks. "Fine, I'll get it. You stay here and check out the ground floor. See if you can find where they're keeping the other cameras."

I nod and head inside. The Museum's doors are wide open and the inside is a mess. A mining cart display has been knocked over, as have the postcard stands in the small giftshop. When I try to go upstairs I find the landing completely blocked by an overturned table and a jumble of other furniture pieces beyond that. Clearly zombies, or something else destructive, were in here, but there's no sign of them now. I check the main floor, but see no other security cameras, or any type of storage. There's a metal door marked with blue, peeling paint that might lead to some sort of storeroom. I try it, but it's locked. I decide not to try forcing it until Kaiyo gets back.

Fortunately it's a short wait. A moment later Kaiyo drops to the ground outside the doors, landing in a perfect crouch. She springs back to her feet and comes running inside, waving a yellow sticky note. "This was on the camera," she announces, handing it to me.

I read it aloud. "Josiah: this is the one that needs changing. Have it done before I'm back from Bangor. New cameras are in the basement. Make sure to fill out a repair form and file it with the museum admins. Signed, James Morris, FMM Janitor." I drop the note. "I guess that means the one on the roof is busted. Let's hope the Museum had two spares down in the basement."

"And the basement is?" Kaiyo says, looking around the open first floor.

"Behind this door, I guess," I say, pointing to the locked blue door. I have no idea where else it would be. "Stand back!" I point my shotgun at the lock and ready a fireball. Kaiyo steps behind me and covers her ears. I fire and the deadbolt shatters, falling inward. Then it's simply a matter of turning the handle and walking down the stairs.

The basement is unfurnished, with bare concrete walls and exposed steam pipes. Bare bulbs provide the only illumination, but at least the lights are on. Then I see something rising from the shadows at the end of this corridor, a man in a tar stained white suit. Then the smell hits me, a rotten smell like sludge from the bottom of a dumpster. It triggers memories. That isn't tar on his shirt. A moment later, I see his face, completely covered in glistening blackness while black tendrils, like horns, wriggle from the sides of his head. _Filth!_ I remember that word, and men like him from the Tokyo nightmare. It's all I can do not to scream.

Kaiyo stops beside me, glancing from me to the man and back again. She gives me a questioning look, but I'm only half aware of it, frozen by fear. I raise and cock my shotgun automatically, like Sarah from the nightmare, preparing to meet the Filth-man's charge.

But he doesn't charge. Instead eyes like smoldering coals lock on me and he begins to whisper. "You should go away now…you should go away! B-because I'm not feeling very stable right now." Then he turns and runs down a side corridor.

"Chirs?" Kaiyo says slowly. "What was that about?"

I glance at her, then check the direction the Filth-infected man ran. No sign of him, but he'll be back. I force myself to look back at Kaiyo for the moment and answer her question. "That man's infected…with the Filth. Don't let him touch you and watch out for any tendrils on the floor or walls or ceiling. Don't let them touch you either."

"Filth?" Kaiyo asks.

I cannot believe that there's something about the Secret World I know that she doesn't, but neither can I deny what I saw in that dream, or that the condition of that man is exactly like that of the zombies—except that he isn't trying to kill us with oil-black claws…yet. "It's…uh, it's something I saw, in a vision, I guess you should say. I think it was at Tokyo."

"You were at Tokyo?" Suddenly Kaiyo looks at me almost in awe.

I shake my head quickly. "No, but I saw it in a dream. The point is, we have to be very careful, and we mustn't let this guy touch us."

"If you say so," Kaiyo says. We advance cautiously down the corridor, till we get to the hall the man ran down. I see him there, a little ways down the hall. His hands glow with an unearthly bluish light and he waves his arms bonelessly in the air, mimicking the tentacles undulating from his skull. I point my shotgun at him and start to advance, but Kaiyo puts her arm out, blocking my path. She's surprisingly strong. "It's a trap," she says. "Can't you see them?"

"See what?" I ask.

"Oh, sorry, I keep forgetting humans don't see infrared. There are lasers up ahead, about ankle height. They could be rigged up to an alarm, but I think it's something a little more nasty," she says, then starts advancing slowly. "Follow my lead and move as I move."

"Shouldn't we take care of him first?" I ask pointing my shotgun at the Filth-infected man.

Kaiyo sighs and shakes her head. "That's typical Templar thinking. _If it's not human or on your side, blast it._ He's just minding his own business. Let him be, unless you think he'll help us." She looks up and shouts at the man. "Hey, Janitor-_san_! Do you know where they keep the extra cameras down here?"

The man makes no response but to whisper, "Go away…go away…" in a haunting, sing-song voice.

"Yeah, didn't think so. Come on." Kaiyo takes the lead, proceeding carefully down the hallway. She pauses several times to step over some unseen obstacle. I'm very careful to follow her movements exactly when she does, making sure I step over the exact same places. It makes for slow going, but eventually she turns to me and says, "We're clear. There's another bunch of lasers up ahead though. We'll have to find a control panel of some sort to shut them off. I don't particularly want to find out what they trigger."

I look toward the infected man, standing several yards down the hall behind the unseen trap, but he's still in his own mad, Filth-infected world. I would try to take him out now, before he becomes a threat, but I don't want to risk my shots setting off whatever trap he's prepared for us. I turn instead to a side room. I can hear the quiet whirring of electric motors inside. That's at least an indication that there's some sort of power, maybe a control panel.

We move inside the storeroom. There are wooden crates everywhere, most stacked up on metal-framed shelves five or more feet high. Looking to the right I see a panel of some sort, mounted just above a five foot shelf. It looks like a keypad. "That could be it," Kaiyo says, advancing toward it. "Now, if I use a precise enough electrical spell…"

I walk beside her but something stops me. There's a buzzing in my brain, like angry hornets, only I don't think they're angry, more afraid! I look up and see a security camera pointing right at us. The buzzing intensifies and I feel like I'm looking down the barrel of a loaded gun instead. "Look out!" I shout, grabbing Kaiyo and throwing her and myself backwards, out of the camera's line of sight. A moment later there's an explosion as a fireball bursts from the camera lens. Wooden shrapnel litters the floor. Some pieces hit me, but my jacket is well padded and they don't hurt me.

"Wow, subtle trap!" Kaiyo says, wriggling out from under me and brushing herself off. "I almost didn't detect it."

"You _knew_ it was there?" I ask, disbelieving.

"Well, sorta, like in-the-back-of-my-mind sort of know, you know?" She helps me to my feet. "I was a little too caught up in picking the right elementalism spell to realize I was about to be the target of one. Thanks!"

"You're welcome." I say. I see another security camera on the other side of the room, swiveling slowly on a motorized mount. "I'm guessing that one's rigged to kill us, too."

"Yeah, my thought is avoid all cameras at this point," says Kaiyo. "Hopefully we find a box full of un-enchanted ones at the end of this that we can use."

We pick our way around the periphery of the room, using the crates and shelves as cover to stay out of the cameras' line of sight. When we do cross open ground, we're careful to be sure the cameras are swiveled away from us. Eventually, Kaiyo reaches a stack of crates she's able to climb up onto to get to the control panel—without having a killer security camera pointed at her. She reaches an open hand toward it and miniature lightning bolts arc from her fingertips, dancing delicately across the keypad. Thin tendrils of smoke rise from the panel and the cameras stop swiveling. The whirring of their motors dies and the buzzing at the back of my brain goes silent. "I think you've disarmed them," I say.

"Hmm, subtle and hard to say," Kaiyo mutters. She pulls that giant leather-bound book from her backpack and mutters something in a language I can't understand. A moment later, she shuts the book and shoves it back in her backpack. "Yup! That did it! You could sense the _anima_ from the trap and the disarming, though. That's kinda impressive."

"I…thanks," I say. That's probably the first time someone has really complemented me on my powers. I raise my shotgun and change the subject. "Let's deal with the Filth-infected man and see if he left us any cameras we can use."

Kaiyo nods and jumps down from the shelf, humming to herself. I can tell she's not as carefree as she seems, though: her right hand closes around her razor-blade pendant the moment she hits the ground. She skips through the doorway while I make my way around the crowded shelves of the storeroom. I'm just rounding the final corner when it happens: the Filth-infected man comes out of nowhere and lunges at Kaiyo.

I shout a warning, but I know I'm too late. The man's hands end in Filth-black talons. He claws at Kaiyo. She gasps, but has only time to pull her hand down off the razor blade and open it. Fortunately, that's enough. Tendrils of blood like veins branch out from her open palm and form a scarlet barrier between her and the Filth-man. His claws rake off the shield in a spray of red. I wonder how long Kaiyo can keep the shield up, or if that alone will kill her!

I'm not about to wait to find out. I drop my shotgun—there's too much risk of hitting Kaiyo. The rifle, similarly, will be a liability in these closed spaces. I pull open my jacket and draw the pair of pistols. I open up with alternating shots from the pocket .45s. _Anima_ slugs slam into the Filth-creature, and I make sure each one saps his strength. He swings again at Kaiyo, but misses. Then he turns to me and gives a blood-curdling shriek. He charges, talons extended, eyes _literally_ flaming. I remember the charging zombie outside the Sheriff's Office, the very first I took down with my pistols. Without thinking, I cross my arms again and work the triggers as fast as I can. Impacts shred the Filth-man's head, then his whole body begins to dissolve into a puddle of smoldering ooze on the floor. I stand over it for a second, pistols ready, before realizing that it's over.

"Nice save," Kaiyo says, and I look quickly at her, afraid I'll find her in a pool of blood on the floor. But to my surprise she's standing in the hall, grinning, with no blood at all on or around her. If not for the cut on her right hand, I would have thought I imagined everything. "Blood shield," she explains. "Angelic Aegis, technically. It's not a fun spell when you have to cast it really suddenly like that, but it's saved my life more than once. I'll be fine in a minute."

"You wouldn't have had to cast it at all if I'd shot that guy the second I saw him," I say ruefully. I holster my pistols and pick up my shotgun before stepping around the pool of goo—and black-stained clothes—that are all that remain of the infected man.

"I'm generally against killing people unless it's for fun or a really good reason, but in future encounters I'm gonna have to agree with you: Filth things are kill-on-sight," Kaiyo says, helping me past the puddle. "On the other hand, though, you can't blame yourself, Chris. You only saw this Filth stuff in a dream. You didn't know…which reminds me. As soon as we're here there's someone I'd like you to meet."

"Who? A survivor?" I ask.

"Yup!" she says. "I found her holed up in the basement of this house while I was waiting for you. She does stuff with dreams and visions and stuff. You should see her. Her room as a treasure trove of magical things—cheep magical things, a lot of them knockoffs, but still magical."

"Let's concentrate on getting the cameras for now." I see a large metal box at the end of the hall. It's partially open. I carefully use the barrel of my shotgun to open it the rest of the way, in case it's a trap. Instead I'm greeted by the sight of two pristine security cameras lying in foam padding at the bottom of the crate. They're even still in their protective plastic bags with brief instructional fliers in the bags with them.

Kaiyo grins. "Score one for Team KCD!" she says, scooping them out and putting them in her backpack.

"Team KCD?" I repeat.

"Yeah, that's us!" she explains. "Kaiyo, Chris, and Dan…or maybe YWM for Yako, Warden, and MacFadden, but that just sounds too formal."

I smirk. "I didn't know we had a name."

"Every great cooperative effort deserves a name," Kaiyo says brightly. "And we _are_ working together on this, after all!"

"I guess we are," I say. She puts on her backpack and starts skipping back down the hall, toward the basement door. I'm about to follow when I a motion in the shadows catches my eye. There's a box there, with a large egg inside. Small, black wriggling tentacles reach from the broken top of the egg, as if feeling for a new victim to ensnare. _Filth_. I glare at it. I guess this is how the survivor in the basement got infected. _You're not spreading any further, and you're not infecting anyone else!_ I point my shotgun at the Filth-egg and hit it with a fireball at point-blank. The box goes to burning pieces and the egg is gone, replaced by a small smoldering puddle of ooze. I check to make sure that was the only one and then, and only then, do I turn to follow Kaiyo. She's standing at the intersection with the main corridor, looking back at me. "Just finishing up," I say.

"Typical Templar," she says, and smiles at me. Together, we leave the basement behind.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Just a quick, public reply to some of your awesome reviews. Thank you all! I appreciate the support and your ideas!

_ ArachCobra:_ Yes, I skipped the end of the "Supply Run" mission in chapter 8, and we will be seeing the end of that in a later chapter. It ends in a run to the firehouse, and since "Death and the Instruments Thereof" also takes characters there, I figured I'd do them together. Naturally you cannot do it this way in the game, but in writing I don't like to repeat scenes if I can help it. You'll notice I also left off the end of "Horror Show" in this chapter. That was in part because the chapter was already pretty long and I'd reached a good stopping point, and also because watching someone who's afraid of heights struggle to unscrew a security camera from the top of a semi-stable 15' canopy is exciting, but watching that same person screw it into a lightpost while standing securely on the ground is not. Neither is watching them "press 1 to activate surveillance camera." It'll be alluded to, but I always found getting the cameras was the fun part anyway.

_ Goretooth: _No need to apologize. I'm also one of the ones running around killing zombies for sport. I even do it as _Chris_, for all the roleplay-breaking that entails. They are delightful to destroy. Among my other vices is following players during the last phase of "Elm Street Blues" and pretending I'm their support (well, I _do_ heal them). I've even done this once while perched on the canopy of the gas station, which Chris would _really_ not be comfortable with (a pity that, it's an excellent vantage for using an assault rifle). It does seem like there should be a way to work around the Agartha-_anima_ problem, but then again maybe there isn't—at least not one that might not do as much harm as good. Kaiyo can travel Agartha by birthright as a mythical-creature hybrid, but Dan's ability came from grabbing a dangerous magical hammer he now has to keep with him at all times and Chris' gift destroyed her apartment and her life. Still seems like there should be some kind of third option... The ammo suggestion is good, and I may be able to sneak it in there. I've already established no-shells as a sort of trademark of Chris' magic, though, so I'm going to leave her that. The Bees/the Buzzing is/are overdue for an appearance. I have a plan for working them in as regulars, but it'll take a few chapters. That being said, one thing I like about TSW is that generally you have to solve the missions with little or no extra help from the game. Even the waypoints it gives you are probably things you could figure out yourself by looking at a map. I like that realism and I hope you enjoy watching Chris solve these puzzles too. Also, Kaiyo's backpack may or may not be a PDI, but that would be TMI, wouldn't it? ;)

_ Jouaint:_ Thanks! Thank you for reading!

And now to this chapter. There's a continuity nod at the beginning to Chris' new clothes she got from the Templars in _Lit Major Shoots Lightning_ and to events of the final chapter there. Also, I _did_ establish that jacket was Chris' favorite, so I had to let her have some reaction. My own reaction was more along the lines of, _Yes! No more stupid prison-jacket!_ The Frontline Jacket is very bulky, but at least it's camo so you can look badass in it. I personally went with the striped one at character creation because I found the other options even less inspiring.

Several parts of the in-game map appear charred or torn away. Chris now has an excuse for that. Also there is no bathroom in the game (in my head it's located where the tiny storage room door is in game, but this only briefly becomes interactable at the end of "Supply Run" and cannot be opened in-game) and hence it is not bugged.

Kaiyo is so much fun to write. The crazy ones are always the best. Her TMI speech about zombie blood is partly researched and partly made up. Etruria was a region of central Italy in ancient times and, according to Wikipedia, necromancy was reportedly widespread among its ancient peoples. Aderastrium is not a real word or name, I just made it up. Erythropoietin can be found on a list of chemical components of human blood on Wikipedia (you can find _anything_ on Wikipedia) and is apparently more prevalent in the case of hypoxia...and since drowning is just forced, lethal hypoxia, I figured it was semi-plausible that it would increase the amount of the chemical in the blood. Also I do not know what zombie blood tastes like and I would highly recommend against anyone trying to find out as many zombie infections are spread by infected fluids.

Of the survival stories Kaiyo relates, only one is from the game: that of Moose and Andy. In game there is never any explanation given, to my knowledge, of Andy's apparent immunity to the Fog. Other survivors may also have been immune, but some clearly were not (Madam Rogêt and Moose were both restrained during the Fog). Deputy Jackson is hard to identify. On the one hand, the title appears over the head of one of the guard NPCs at the gates, who is a black police officer. On the other, it can also be attributed in chat to the announcer who calls out zombie attacks in "Elm Street Blues," even though the voice is definitely female. I went with Jackson as the name of the guard, since I always assumed the announcer was Helen Bannerman herself.

The Idol of Nergal is something real in-game that players may not be aware of. It's a lion-shaped black idol in an isolated cave down near where the Solomon Death Cultists hang out. It's not easy to find, but if you find the idol you can pick up a side mission to deliver it to the warded Church for safekeeping. During the course of the mission, the idol will spawn one Reanimated Warrior to attack the player every few minutes. In my own experience running this mission, these extra zombies were not a big deal. I even messed around some on the quest, detouring to the Sheriff's Office just to see if the NPC's guarding the gate would kill the new spawn for me (they certainly will, sadly once inside the compound no more Reanimated Warriors will spawn on the player until they leave—sigh, and I wanted to freak out newbies!). Reanimated Warriors are also no match for the zombie-killing doorway of the church (which is ever so much fun to play with). Overall, it's nowhere near as bad an escort mission as "That'll Leave a Mark!"

But I digress! Nergal is the actual ancient Akkadian (or Mesopotamian) god of the netherworld, among other things, and his name is mentioned in the Bible in 2 Kings 17:30 as one of the idols the people of Cuth made. His traditional depiction was as a lion. In certain demonology, he's apparently said to be a demon of high rank. Aspects of his personality are made up simply to suit the flavor of the side quest (as I found it), as are his abilities. While Nergal seems the likely culprit of the zombie apocalypse on Solomon Island, he is at worst an opportunist, at best a victim. The Templar flavor text for completing the side quest with the idol reads, in part "The Akkadian god of the underworld summons the dead whenever he feels threatened. When the Illuminati first recovered the idol, they put it on display at one of their infamous council parties. Imagine how that turned out."

Remind me not to go to any Illuminati parties!

CCTV stands for "Closed Circuit TV." I left out a lot of Sheriff Bannerman's dialogue for "Horror Show" and mixed in a bit of her dialogue on the topic of The Secret World. My biggest reason for doing this was that not only would it have made for an unnecessarily long conversation but also Bannerman's speech seems to imply that the Sheriff's Office has all sorts of security devices, including web cams and motion sensors, which doesn't make much sense to me if the next thing players have to do is go out and hunt down run-of-the-mill security cameras from local business owners. Playing with the idea of private enterprise being better funded than local law enforcement seemed like a viable alternative to me.

As for the mission itself, "Horror Show" does not require a party and probably doesn't really benefit from one either, but I wanted to show the three agents starting to work together in this crisis. The typical approach to the mission involves climbing up on the gas station and the Museum from the rear to access their cameras, but someone suggested (and I have verified in game) that it's possible to access both cameras simply by jumping near them and pressing the interact button at the top of the jump. This is not very realistic, though!

The state of the gas station is true to the game. It's actually pretty cool to look at, if you get the chance. They did a lot of detailed work there. According to a state of Arizona pamphlet I found online, gas station canopies are to be between 13' and 17' high, which would place this one in the middle. The bit about the ammo and shotgun on the roof is true in-game, though players cannot retrieve the ammunition or interact with it at all (also, the ammo can appears to be filled with large rifle bullets while the roof around it is littered with shotgun shells). No clue where the shotgun's wielder went, though there is a body, for no apparent reason, draped over the inaccessible top of the 2-story tall sign for the gas station. How someone managed to die up there is anybody's guess. The two groups of zombies around the gas station are there in game, but killing one will not aggro the other. Also, interestingly, you can engage both groups from the rooftop using an assault rifle. Even more interestingly they will engage you back using a red-beam ranged attack. Zombies will not use this in any other circumstance that I'm aware of, except when players engage them from rooftops or other jump-accessible objects.

I can't remember if I ever said Chris was afraid of heights, but she is now. I am, too, for the record, and just thinking about what she'd have done up there made me _very_ uncomfortable.

The mining museum interior is true to the game, complete with the table blocking the stairs. It's the game designer's way of saying, "We didn't _make_ an upstairs: stay on the ground floor!" It's clever, though. Not so clever: shooting the lock. While the Mythbusters proved that with a shotgun or high-powered rifle (_not_ a handgun) it's a very quick way to open a door, it's also a very quick way to get metal fragments embedded in your body. It's a staple of action, though, so I included it. Plus, Chris at least has the excuse of _magic_ bullets!

Several guides refer to the man in the basement as James Morris, but the game does not name him as such and he may in fact be Josiah or someone else entirely. Chris first met the Filth infected during the Tokyo flashback in _Lit Major Shoots Lightning_. It was not a pleasant experience. In-game seeing a Filth-infected guy was an oh-no moment for me too on my first play through of this mission, as I thought the next thing I knew my character would be getting jumped by all sorts of monsters from the Tokyo Flashback. Fortunately that's not the case and the Insane Survivalist just forces you to maneuver through a maze of traps to reach him and fight him. First there's lasers, which are quite visible like no real life lasers you could use for security purposes (as Mythbusters also proved; arguably not even Kaiyo should have been able to see these, but it at least sounded better than making them cheesy red beams). Crossing them results in an explosion that takes a chunk off your health. Then there are the security cameras, which inexplicably double as floodlights (so players can see their field of view) stepping into which causes an audible beeping followed by instant death in firey explosion. There are two sets of lasers and two camera-guarded storerooms to navigate, but I compressed it down to one for brevity.

-_san_ is a Japanese honorific. In this case "Janitor_-san_" would mean "Mr. Janitor"...in a weird Japanese-English mashup that probably only Kaiyo uses... Kaiyo also uses Angelic Aegis, which is the most powerful blood barrier available on the inner tier. It also has a pretty creepy animation that includes veins and such. In fact there's not much about blood magic that isn't creepy...but it is cool in game!


	10. The Biker and the Fortune Teller

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

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><p><strong><em>The Biker and the Fortune Teller<em>**

_Thursday, September 26, 4:15PM_  
><em>Near the Sheriff's Office, Kingsmouth, Maine<em>

* * *

><p>I check around the corner of the house. There are a couple zombies idling there, kicking listlessly at the siding. I draw back and whisper to the big bearded man, Moose, "We've got some company."<p>

"Tell them _Namaste_ for me," Moose whispers back, and I can see a slight grin beneath his beard as he works on installing one of the security cameras on an abandoned porch.

"Namaste?" I repeat.

"It means _hello_," he says, then looks at my shotgun and gives me a wink.

I nod. Moose is obviously no lover of zombies, and after what I've seen on Solomon Island, neither am I. I cock my shotgun and step around the corner. But when I do, I find that the zombies are already shambling around the far side of the house, attracted toward the street by some other noise. Pursuing them now would mean leaving Moose defenseless, and that's not a risk I'm willing to take. I step back and join him on the porch. "They decided they had better things to do," I say.

"We'll catch 'em next time," Moose says. He finishes up with one screw and starts on another.

I stand for a moment, keeping watch, but it feels a little awkward to be standing next to someone and not talking to them. "Where are you from?" I ask at last. "_Namaste_ isn't English. Is it from the local Indian tribe?"

Moose shakes his head. "It's Hindu actually, from the _other_ kind of Indian," he says. "And before you ask, I'm not from there either." He picks up the final screw. "Born, raised, and worked in New York City most of my life—office job. There's nothing like the confines of a cubicle or a packed subway to give a man perspective. I was so caught up in the grind of office politics and the endless hunt for affirmation and money, I didn't realize I was gettin' sick." He shakes his head and looks at me. "Friend, I was no more alive than those things out there, and a sight less mobile. The disease that grew inside me was as black as theirs."

I can't imagine a man like Moose sitting in an office or working in a cubicle. "What happened?" I ask.

"Well, Robert Frost said, 'Freedom lies in bein' bold.' So I boldly quit my job and traded my rent-controlled apartment on Christopher Street for a vintage Harley and an old poncho," he explains. "Found my salvation in the open road, and I haven't looked back since."

"So you were just passing through Kingsmouth then, when the Fog hit?" I shift in place. "That must have been a nasty surprise."

"Not as big a surprise as you'd think," Moose says. "When you're living on the razor's edge of society your eyes open up to the possibility that there's something more to this world: something most people are too blind or too preoccupied to notice, even if it's right under their noses, and has been all along."

I look back at him. "You know about it then? The Secret World?"

He nods. "I only noticed small things at first: roads that appeared and disappeared, folks who traveled by way of gates drawn in chalk on brick walls, houses bigger on the inside than the outside, magic trinkets sold at yard sales, street shamans capable of taking out the cancer inside you," he explains. "It wasn't until I found myself face to face with werewolves in New Orleans that I realized there was a secret war going on. After that, I couldn't escape it. I saw signs and sigils everywhere. I've met recruiters for the Templars, the Illuminati, and the Dragon. They all seem to think I'd make a useful operative."

I'm a little taken aback by what he's said. "You know about the Secret World, and _all_ the societies have been trying to recruit you?" I shake my head. "I only found out earlier this month when I gained my powers, and the Templars were the only ones who contacted me."

"And you snapped up their offer?" he asks, an edge of challenge to his voice.

"I didn't have much choice," I say, a bit defensively. "I couldn't control my powers on my own. They were destroying my life! I was a danger to myself and everyone around me."

"And let me guess, now you're only a danger to their enemies." Moose grunts and finishes up the screw, then meets my gaze. "Well don't let me judge you, kid. We all find our own road in life. Myself, I told all the recruiters that I'd take no sides. I want no part in the secret war between the cabals. But this," he says, thrusting his screwdriver towards town, and the sound of zombie screams. "This _united against darkness_ thing I can get behind. We're all in this together…and we all got work to do." He plugs in the cable and aims the camera down the street, so it has an unobstructed view of the approach to the barricaded Sheriff's Office. "Speakin' of work, our part in this early-warning system's done. Time to head back in and see how your Illuminati friend is doing."

I'm a little surprised that Moose knows Dan's Illuminati, but then again, I suppose I shouldn't be. Moose evidently has a lot more experience in the Secret World than I do, and Dan's dropped enough hints of his allegiance for someone like Moose to put the pieces together.

We hurry back to the barricade. Deputy Garnder opens the gate for us and Moose greets him with a big smile and a shout of "Andy!"

Andy's return smile is a little nervous. "They're, uh, eatin' inside," he says. "The Sheriff broke out some of them canned goods you brought back, Miss Warden. You better get some while you can."

My stomach gives a painful rumble, reminding me that I haven't had a real meal all day. "Thanks," I say, but Andy's already busy locking up the gate. Moose shrugs and we head inside.

A table has been set up in the middle of the interior with opened cans and food packaging on it. All of the cans and packages are empty except for one can of beans. Moose gestures for me to take it, but before I can respond someone shouts, "No!"

I turn to find Kaiyo sitting on an old mattress in a corner. She has two opened cans in front of her, and she pats a spot on the mattress beside her, opposite Dan McFadden. "I saved you a can and a spot," she says.

I leave the beans on the table for Moose and join her on the mattress. She hands me a can labeled _Fruit Cocktail_ and a plastic fork as I sit down. I begin eating gratefully, then tell them, "The cameras are all installed and hooked up. All we need now is the computer system to monitor them and pass the footage on." I glance at Dan. "Are you ready with that?"

"I fucking wish," Dan mutters, spooning some beans into his mouth.

I'm a little surprised, and annoyed, to find he isn't done yet. "It took us hours to get all those cameras and set them up. What's taking you so long?"

"Well, I'm mot dicking awound wiff fuckming mutant manitors, mike _mum_ people," he says around a mouthful, pointing a plastic spoon at me.

Kaiyo cocks her head to one side, as if considering. "Actually it was a pretty serious monster down in that basement…and I don't think either of us have dicks," she says, then turns to me. "He's having trouble with the computer," she explains.

"T'a _fuckming_ computor_,_" Dan says before swallowing.

"Right, well, apparently the software's a little older than what he's used to," she says.

"Its operating system is from fucking 80's and runs on actually _floppy_ floppy disks," Dan explains. "The monitor only displays lines of text, and only in green. There's no mouse; the whole interface is _press 1 for this, press 2 for that_…and half the time it doesn't fucking tell you what buttons to push at all! And to top it all the fucking thing has less memory and processing power than my fucking phone." He gives an exasperated sigh. "It's one fucking step above an elementary-school kid's calculator and I'm trying to make it monitor video feeds in real time and upload them to the three most advanced information networks in the world. It's a fucking nightmare! I'm having to write half the code myself, from scratch!"

"Oh, I guess the Sheriff wasn't lying when she said she didn't have much technology budget," I say, suddenly understanding his frustration. "I didn't bring my laptop, but I might be able to have it sent here. Would that help?"

He shakes his head. "I just spent the last half hour convincing the networks to accept an upload from that outdated piece of shit. I'm not gonna start from scratch now." Then he gives me a slight smile. "All the same, thanks for the offer, babe."

"You're welcome," I say, "And don't call me _babe_." _Or hit on me, ever_, I want to add, but that might completely shatter the fragile cooperative mood. Besides, I think that was the first genuinely nice thing Dan's said to me, and he is sort of handsome, for a jerk.

"I still don't understand why it's a big deal that the computer's thirty years old. Lots of things that are much older work just fine or even better," Kaiyo says. "But as long as you can manage it, it's not _really_ a big deal, right?"

Dan chuckles and shakes his head. "I suppose not. I'll sort out the fucking thing in a few more hours anyway."

Kaiyo grins. "Well then, great! You can sort out the computer while I take Chris to the fortune teller I found!"

"Fortune teller?" I repeat. "I thought you were taking me to see a survivor who was good with dreams."

"Yup," says Kaiyo, "She's a fortune teller!"

I balk at the prospect, picturing the shady con-artists my Dad warned me against when I was younger, but Kaiyo did say that she had some enchanted artifacts. "I guess we can at least check her out," I say, before forking the last of my fruit into my mouth.

"You'd better hurry," says Dan. "It'll be dark in a couple hours."

"No problem!" Kaiyo says, smiling to show off her fangs. "I'm a dhampir, remember?"

"Yeah, but she isn't," he says, pointing a spoon at me. "And if you get her killed, it'll be quite a loss."

"Yeah, who will you pick on then?" I ask sarcastically, "Kaiyo?"

"Exactly," says Dan. "So come back alive or this little monster will eat me," he tells me, pointing at the Japanese girl between us.

"Aww, you're too kind, Dan!" Kaiyo says. She gives him a peck on the cheek. He wipes it quickly away with his sleeve. The dhampir girl laughs and rises, offering me a hand up.

I take it, and together we go to the gate. Andy lets us out and we head down Arkham Avenue, then turn down Lovecraft Lane. The shadows are getting longer and the Fog on the horizon looks darker than ever, but most of the zombies seem to be elsewhere, so I think we'll probably be alright as long as we're back before nightfall. Still I pat the pockets of my army coat and am glad to find that the flashlight I took out with me when I was helping Moose install the cameras is still there.

Suddenly, Kaiyo makes a sharp right hand turn and heads down an alleyway between a house with carved pumpkins already out for Halloween and a larger, two-story building. "She's this way," the dhampir girl says by way of explanation, pointing to a large white sign plastered to the side of the larger building. It bears the stylized name _The Raven's Knock_ and an arrow pointing down the alley. _Magick, Psychic Readings, Potions, Charms, and Spells_ the sign promises. I frown. This looks like exactly the sort of place I should avoid…but I've trusted Kaiyo so far. I shrug and follow her down the alley.

The alley twists a little, but soon opens up into a large dirt-paved yard, evidently being used as a parking lot, judging from the old van that's been left pulled up diagonally to the wooden fence. The fence surrounds most of the yard, separating it from the property of the backsides of the houses around it. The only house that isn't fenced off this way has evidently been converted into a condominium. A large wooden porch has been added outside the backdoor, as has a set of stairs leading to a second-story entrance. Over the backdoor a white sign hangs, with the same black stylized lettering announcing _The Raven's Knock_. Miniature plastic jack-o-lanterns and paper ghosts have been strung up beneath it, but I think their festivity looks out of place in a town that had become actually haunted (albeit from zombies, not ghosts). The door stands open, waiting, and the hallway beyond it is deserted. That makes me nervous. I heft my shotgun. "Is this the place?" I ask Kaiyo.

She nods. She walks right up and raps on the door frame. I bite my lip and raise my weapon, ready for anything.

"Rogêt-_san_!" Kaiyo calls. "It's me, Kaiyo Yako! I've got a friend I want you to meet!"

"Come in, and shut the door behind you!" a woman's voice shouts from somewhere inside. "I've been expecting you!"

I lower my weapon and allow Kaiyo to lead the way inside. I pause to close the door behind us, and lock it for good measure. I don't think the zombies are smart enough to figure out doorknobs, but I'm not willing to risk my life on it. With the door secured I turn back to Kaiyo, following her down a short hall. The carpet is covered by Indian rugs and tie-dye tapestries with pagan symbols hang on the walls. "You told her I was coming?" I ask, tucking away my shotgun in my backpack.

"Nope!" Kaiyo says, turning a corner and leading down some stairs. They're carpeted with Indian rugs, but otherwise barren. "She's a fortune teller, remember?"

I remain unconvinced. The stairs end at a fairly-large windowless room in the basement, which has been extensively decorated. Every wall and surface seems taken up with occult trappings. There's a circular rug depicting the signs of the zodiac on the floor, and weird purple tapestries swathed across the ceiling. Bookshelves line the left hand side of the room, and bear more than dusty tomes. There are several lit displays of colorful crystals and several odd clay jars and vials. There's even a human skull, but looking closer I see that it's plastic. To my right the wall is taken up with abstract tapestries, and behind me in that corner is a set of African drums sitting beneath a large Indian dream-catcher. Checking the other corner I find a small desk decorated by _The Raven's Knock_ logo, with a smattering of other occult knickknacks surrounding a cash register.

Opposite the register, nestled between the bookshelves and the door to the next room, is a circular table with a white crystal ball on a lit stand prominently in the center. A woman in an old scarlet gown is seated in the corner chair, across the table from us. She's slumped across the table at first, but as we enter she grunts and straightens, giving us an obviously-forced smile.

I make myself smile back. The woman is tall with red hair. She seems middle-aged but it's hard to tell. Her face is caked in too much makeup, which has smudged and run in places. She looks from Kaiyo to me, but then looks quickly back to Kaiyo, blinking. The Japanese girl takes this as her cue. "Madame Rogêt, Chris Warden," she says, making introductions.

"Hi," I say. The woman acknowledges it with a nod but still won't look at me. I shift my feet, uncomfortable. "So you, uh, knew we were coming?"

The woman smirks and spreads her hands dramatically over the crystal ball. "I sensed it," she answers in a thick accent. "I sense…I sense an alien presence. You and your foreign companion have come to seek it, but it will not yield easily. Dee Fog obscures a terrible truth, concealed behind a veil of…" Her voice trails off and she drops her hands to a natural position on the table. She shakes her head and when she speaks again there's no accent at all. "Sorry, old habits," she says. "Yeah, like your friend probably told you, I'm a fortune teller, but I don't give readings anymore. She jabs a thumb at toward the entrance of the house. "I've been outside. I don't need second sight to foretell our future. We're all doomed, and I'm not gonna need the money, so if that's what she brought you here for, well…" She shrugs. "Sorry to disappoint."

"Actually we're here about some dreams," says Kaiyo.

"I don't suppose there's anything in your crystal ball about creepily-real nightmares, or nightmare things turning out to _be_ real?" I ask, crossing my arms.

"Funny you should ask that," says Rogêt. She makes a sweeping gesture at the crystal ball and the rest of the room. "You see, all this was always about deception. The light-up crystal ball, the Gypsy clothes, the fake accent: cheap props to make the fortune cookies easier to swallow."

"You mean you never really told the future?" Kaiyo looks genuinely disappointed. I'm not surprised, but I feel for the girl, my friend, who was taken in.

"Of course not," Rogêt says. "My customers, they bought into it because they wanted to. You know, if there's no free will, if it's all about fate, then life's a whole lot simpler. We can just say, _Hey, it was meant to be_, and then get on with it."

"You mean, just because I wanted to…" Kaiyo actually looks like she's about to cry. I bite my lip and give her a hug to comfort her.

"Sorry, dear," Rogêt says, rising. "Hate to break it to you, but that's the key to fortune telling. _That_'s why people fall for it. We're all prisoners of our search for higher meaning."

"Some of us find it elsewhere," I say, glaring at the con artist, but she doesn't seem to notice. She still refuses to look at me.

"Suit yourself. It's all mutual deception anyway," she says. "I never believed I was telling anyone anything they didn't know…at least not until now."

Kaiyo perks up instantly and pushes away from me with a triumphant grin. "I knew it! You _are_ a real fortune teller!"

But Rogêt shakes her head. "Not that way. No crystal balls, no Tarot cards: nothing normal or _manageable_." She closes her eyes for a second, then turns to face us. Her hands wring each other nervously. "Call me crazy, but I have…waking dreams. Visions." She hesitates for a moment, frowning over her own choice of words.

"What sort of visions?" I ask. Visions feature prominently in the Bible and I know they _can_ be true, but they're also very close to my own strange dreams.

"All sorts," the woman says. She glances momentarily at me, but again she rapidly looks away, blinking. She begins to pace. "I see auras, for one. Auras!" She shakes her head. "Kaiyo's, for instance, is light but disturbing, all shot through with red and bleeding all over everything. And yours Chris…" She shoots another glance at me, then shields her eyes with a hand, blocking me out. "Yours is bright enough to blind me, with an afterimage like…honeycombs."

"Ooh! That's cool!" Kaiyo pulls that huge leather-bound book out of her anime-bunny-themed backpack and starts rifling through the pages. "Any idea what it means?"

"Not a clue," says Rogêt. She plops down on a chair on this side of the table. She turns toward me, but careful to keep her eyes averted. "Sorry, Chris, but all I can say is I'm glad I've never seen anyone with an aura like yours since I started seeing them."

"It's alright," I say. "Sorry I misunderstood you." I shift in place. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing I can do either," she mutters. She turns to Kaiyo, who's still leafing through the giant book. "If you're looking my symptoms up in your _Encyclopedia Grimoire_ there, you might want to add a few. In addition to the auras I can see through the eyes of others. I can even see into the future—for real! I knew, really knew, you were coming today, and when." She shakes her head. "I didn't want to believe it though. I figured I'd leave the door open for grins, though. You know, if I'm wrong maybe a zombie'll finally come in here and put me out of my misery. I should've known better." She stands and begins pacing again. "I can see the paths of fate, clear as day. It's as if I've _become_ who I pretended to be all these years, _sans_ accent." She shrugs. "Or, you know, maybe I'm just going crazy. I could be going crazy. I wouldn't blame myself at all! I mean, after all I've been through…the Fog, that weird compulsion to drown in the sea, being stuck here, stark naked and handcuffed to my bed for the better part of a day…"

"Uh…," I start, eyes widening.

"Don't ask," Rogêt says. "Let's just say I have the mayor's fetishes and a pair of plush handcuffs to thank for my life though he…well, he wasn't so lucky. He's probably still out there somewhere, zombified, walking around in his boxers…with the keys to the handcuffs. I'm just lucky Andy found me." She giggles. "He turned as red as a tomato, the sweet kid. But I…"

She gasps suddenly and her hands go to her temples. "Oh great, here we go again," she mutters, standing still, eyes closed.

Kaiyo looks up from her book. "What is it?"

"I'm having another vision," Rogêt says. "They come and go like headaches. I can't really control them."

Something about the rueful way she says that reminds me of my own first week with powers, and my own struggle to control them. If what Rogêt says is true, maybe she has powers too, though at least not any destructive ones. I step closer. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Yes," she says. She reaches for me, eyes still shut, hands flailing. "Quick, before it passes!"

I step into her reach and her left hand connects with my cheek. It's a gentle touch but I feel it in every bone. There's power here, unmistakable. I can feel it like I felt the talismans Sonnac gave me. It buzzes in my brain like a whole hive of upset bees and suddenly I am paralyzed in the prophetess' grip.

"I see your twin paths," Rogêt says. "One leads to salvation, the other to defeat. I see black tendrils rising to embrace you, voices whispering in your ear: corruption from within and without. Something is rising from the bottomless deep to devour us all, to turn day into night. You must make the right choices, and you must choose for yourself."

The words remind me instantly of the dream I had the night I received my powers. It was only a few weeks ago, but it seems like a lifetime. The connection shocks me almost as much as the power in this woman's touch. I wonder if that dream, too, was real, and what it can possibly mean. I try open my mouth to speak, but I still can't move.

"Sorry," Rogêt says, though whether for my paralysis or the content of her vision, I'm not sure. "I see something else…Ravens, thousands of ravens. Flapping wings, black feathers, dead eyes." She shudders. "Beaks and talons tearing, and clawing, and screeching. Black feathers in the grass. Pages in the park. Red blossoms in the pool…" She opens her eyes, but they seem distant, unfocused. "Wings of death, and pestilence," she pronounces. "A black timeless malice covering Kingsmouth like a funeral shroud…"

Then, suddenly, the buzzing in my head stops. The feeling of power is gone and Rogêt closes her mouth so quickly I can hear her teeth click. She withdraws her hand and turns away from me. "Well, you wanted to see your future, ladies? That's as good as it's gonna get. Make of it what you will." She plops down on the chair beside the table again and cradles her head in one hand. "Sometimes I get more visions, like the aftershocks of an earthquake. If that happens, I'll let you know. I wouldn't count on it, though. Whatever that last thing was, it felt…close, very close. Tonight, in fact, if I had to make a bet. _Wings of death, and pestilence_," she repeats, then shivers. "God, this creeps the hell out of me, and it's totally ruined my beauty sleep."

Kaiyo however, has a white-knuckled grip on her book and wears a gleeful grin. "That was so _cool!_" she fairly squeals. "You _do_ have visions!"

"Yeah, go me," says Rogêt, twirling a finger lazily through the air like a banner. "Can't say what they mean, though, much less interpret the dreams of others. Sorry to disappoint." She looks toward me, but not at me and gives me a frown I interpret as an apology. "You girls better get moving back to the Sheriff's compound, if you want to make it back before nightfall," she says

"What about you?" I ask.

"I'll be fine here," she says. "I've had enough of their judgmental looks to last a lifetime without _this_." She taps her head. "At least I can fend for myself and get plenty of warning if something's ever headed my way." She looks up, toward but not at me. "You and your friend should worry about yourselves. I'm sure you're tough and all, but there's worse out there than we've seen yet. Also, look out for ravens. Seriously."

Kaiyo nods, shutting her book. She wrestles it back into her backpack and has it half shut when something on the bookshelf catches her eye. "Ooh, is that what I think that is?"

"Whatever it is, if you want it, it's yours," says Rogêt, her head now cupped in her hands. I wonder if she gets headaches after using her powers, the way I did before. "You don't even have to pay for it. Let's call it a freebie, sweetie."

"Cool!" says the Japanese girl. She jumps up on her tip-toes and snatches a dark glass bottle from the top shelf, shoving it in her backpack. Then she picks up a silver watch and a necklace made of an obsidian fishhook on twine. "You might want these, Chris," she says. She holds the watch out to me.

I'm about to refuse and tell her I just use my phone when I need to know the time but then I feel the buzzing in my brain as she brings the watch closer. It's not a paralyzing outside power like when the fortune-teller-turned prophetess touched me, but it feels like the talismans Sonnac gave me, a power in the watch that amplifies my own. I take it and fasten it around my wrist, pushing up the sleeve of the bulky army coat to do so. I feel stronger now. I feel a similar buzz from the fishhook necklace as I put it around her neck. "Thanks," I say. "I think those might really make a difference."

"Good," says Rogêt. "Take them. Good riddance to them…and good luck to you. Be careful, and, you know: watch for ravens."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> I was going to do this chapter and the next as a single chapter, but that seemed too long, so I split it up. I hope you like the resulting two-parter!

_Namaste_ is something Moose will occasionally say spontaneously as a player approaches him, and it is a customary Hindu greeting. It's not really clear where he picked it up, because he doesn't appear to be Indian and his backstory certainly doesn't reference it, but he _did_ pick up an awful lot while traveling. Perhaps Hindu language and culture was one of those things. The parts about Moose being in on the Secret World and approached by agents of all three cabals is actually from the his in-game dialogue, which surprised me. I never really took the time to talk to him in game. I guess it goes to show you that the developers at Funcom put interesting secrets in every little corner and character of their game.

In the game lore, Moose has very strong feelings for Andy, which Andy doesn't return. It's unclear in fact, if Andy has strong feelings for anyone beyond his long-dead kittens, but he is a very nice, mild-mannered young man.

It occurs to me at this point that I haven't given my characters a chance to eat all day...and haven't once mentioned them being hungry. My excuse is that they were too busy with the zombie apocalypse to notice...but I'm totally busted on account of realism! In the interests of redeeming myself, the mattress used by Team KCD does exist in game, and you can make your character sleep on it by standing in the center and using the "/sleep" chat command. The Secret World has lots of fun chat commands!

Dan's description of the computer interface in The Secret World is pretty accurate. The game allows players to interface with in-game computers but the resulting system seems terribly outdated. Gone are the omnipresent Windows XP or Apple Macintosh interfaces many businesses today use, though these are themselves somewhat outdated (someday, this author's note will date this story terribly). In their place is this black screen with green text which players control by pressing number keys. It looks like something straight out of the 80's. Even the most advanced corporations use this interface for their computers. Strangely enough, this anachronism didn't even occur to me until I sat down to write this chapter. On the positive side, using this sort of interface probably makes sense for the developers, as it keeps them free of any legal entanglements with copyrights on modern designs and also simplifies the process of using in-game computers for players. It also prevents them from having to continually update the interfaces as newer and newer operating systems become the norm. So since it's probably a design element of the game, I'll mostly ignore it and use whatever sort of programs in the story I think are appropriate. This time, though, I thought it would be good to torment Dan with something hopelessly out of date!

The sign for "The Raven's Knock" is actually there, right on the side of the building. Like many things in this chapter, I didn't even notice it until I went back through the area in preparation for writing. It does make sense for it to be there, since Madame Rogêt's shop is rather out of the way. The door to the shop is open, which is good for players since the only way to open a closed door in-game seems to be to enter an instanced area. However it has always made me wonder how Rogêt manages to stay alive. The open door of the Sheriff's Office is protected by armed guards that frequently gun down zombies attempting to enter the area. The Raven's Knock has no such protections. I'm curious whether or not this would allow a player to aggro a bunch of zombies and then lead them on a merry chase down to Madame Rogêt's...but developers probably thought of this and intentionally made the path too long (after I wrote this, I went into the game and tested this out. Zombies will pursue a player as far as the base of Madam Rogêt's stairs before evading. Since there is nothing really to prevent them from going into the room itself, aside from their normal range-limitations, it would be interesting to see whether or not you could get Nergal's minions to spawn on you while chatting with Madame Rogêt—I bet _that_ would be something she wouldn't see coming!)

Rogêt's appearance seems to have changed from the earlier versions of the game. When she first appeared, I remember she looked very old. Videos of her first appearance can still be found on Youtube. She looks younger now, but still with very heavy makeup and some slight signs of age—which are consistent with the way she addresses characters such as Andy and the player as if they are younger than herself. Upon entering the Raven's Knock, players may find her in one of her default animations, which shows her slouched across the table.

Her dialogue is patched together from the introductions to the missions "The Raven" and "The Vision." The first part of her prophesy also featured in an early game trailer. I added a bit to that to make the connection to Chris' first dream, which is straight out of the introductory scenes of the game. Rogêt's in-game dialogue is also referenced with regards to how she escaped the Fog, though her way of describing it in the game is much more amusing. I did ad-lib a little. While Rogêt does mention the player having a blindingly bright aura, she does not actually react as if unable to look at the player because of it, nor does she mention honeycombs. Also the part about her having a mind-buzzing paralyzing touch while she prophesies is completely made up by me. Mostly I wanted something that would make a strong impression on Chris and convince her that she needed to heed Rogêt's warnings. I also added a few phrases to the prophesy about the ravens.

There at the end, I used Rogêt shop of curiosities to sneak in a couple upgraded talismans for Chris (which are based on real in-game talismans that I equip on her). I have no idea what Kaiyo grabbed though. You can make of that what you will. Maybe it was an ancient, arcane, blood-flavored soda.

See you soon in part two!


	11. Ravens

**Disclaimer**: The Secret World and all associated characters, settings, and situations are the property of Funcom and Electronic Arts. All use of them here is purely for entertainment purposes, without permission or intention to profit.

**Warning:** This chapter contains spoilers for the action mission "The Raven." If you do not wish to view spoilers on this mission it is recommended that you do not read this chapter at this time.

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><p><em><strong>Ravens<strong>_

_Thursday, September 26, 5:45 PM  
>The Raven's Knock, Kingsmouth, Maine<em>

* * *

><p>We head back up the stairs and down the hall. I ready my shotgun again as we go outside. The yard-turned-parking-lot is now completely in shadow, and clouds overhead are lit from below with the yellows and reds of sunset. Kaiyo hums a tune to herself—maybe the theme to some anime—while she pulls the door shut behind us. I step off the porch and cross the parking lot halfway when suddenly see something that stops me in my tracks. Kaiyo starts to skip past me, but I grab her arm, stopping her as well, and I point.<p>

There, in the middle of the alley, is a large black raven. That alone would have been enough to scare me after Madame Rogêt's powerful warning, but even without it this raven is unnerving. It stands in front of us with its wings slightly outstretched, its glossy black eyes watching us, unblinking, unflinching. It gives a harsh croak—much deeper than the light cawing of crows I'm used to—then it steps toward us, wings flapping as if to shoo us away, as if trying to block our path.

My reaction to this unnatural bird is more instinct than conscious thought. As it comes closer, wings spread wide and sharp beak glistening, I hold my shotgun out in front of me and pull the trigger. The gun bucks. The fireball misses, slamming into the dirt in front of the raven and throwing up dust and pebbles. The raven falters though. It gives another low croak and then retreats, wings pumping and trailing feathers—hit, but not seriously injured.

Once it's gone, Kaiyo pulls her arm from my grip. "So, what was that about?" she asks, giving me a quizzical, and somewhat accusatory, look.

"It was a raven," I try to explain. "She warned us about them so…"

"So you decided to shoot at it?" She shakes her head. "Typical Templar. Come on, let's get back to the barricade and get you inside. I promise Dan and I will find you something more productive to kill tomorrow." She starts into the alleyway, giving the small crater left by my fireball a wide berth.

"But the prophesy…," I say, following. "Ms Rogêt said…"

"What she said could mean almost anything," Kaiyo says. "Oh, don't get me wrong: that vision was pretty awesome. Still, visions, dreams, and prophesies are really unpredictable powers and extremely difficult to interpret. Since Rogêt-_san_ is new to her powers and has no control whatsoever, it'll be pretty hard to tell what any part of her vision means, and it's a pretty sure bet she won't be able to help you out with your dreams either." She looks back and frowns at me. "Sorry for dragging you out here so late. I really thought she had more experience with this sort of stuff. I didn't know she was just a con artist before."

I shrug. "It's alright," I say. "Let's just get back to the barricade." I try to act normal—or what passes for normal during the local zombie apocalypse—but Rogêt's words and warnings keep running through my mind. I catch myself looking to the sky, trying to see if I can spot that creepy raven again.

We head out onto the street. I check around the corners carefully, but Kaiyo strides out boldly. "There's nothing here," she assures me. "The zombies are having a party someplace to the north of here. I can hear 'em." I nod and head up the street with her, or at least I start to before I see what's on the sidewalk across the street from us.

There's a pair of ravens. One of them holds its wing awkwardly open, obviously injured. The other regards me accusingly with dead-black eyes. It croaks, then flaps its wings at me in a threat display like the first one did. Its companion croaks its own harsh rebuke.

This time I don't panic-fire at it. Instead I grab Kaiyo's sleeve and point. "Look, it's back again," I say.

She looks across the street. "Okay, well that is weird," she says and glares at the birds. "Go on you stupid ravens! Get out of here! You're creeping out my trigger-happy friend!" she shouts at them. She raises a hand and miniature lightning bolts arc between her fingertips. The ravens give a harsh alarm call and take to the sky, flying up the street and across Arkham Avenue, disappearing behind a large three-story house. "There, problem solved," Kaiyo declares, and she continues on.

I follow her. With the sun going down and that black fog all around the island it's getting dark fast. It's not dark enough for a flashlight yet, but the lack of visibility is still enough to make me distinctly uncomfortable. There are still slashes of orange sunlight cutting in between trees and houses, though. I notice one of them behind the house across Arkham Avenue, and then I see shapes pinwheeling in that sunlight. I feel a chill. The shapes are ravens, dozens and dozens of ravens, circling silently in the yard behind the house. While the boldness of the birds I faced earlier was unnatural, this is something else, something worse. Every instinct I have tells me I need to run and forget I ever saw those ravens circling, but I grit my teeth and stand my ground. If Rogêt is right, there's a malice behind the ravens here in Kingsmouth, and I may be the only thing between it and the survivors.

Just then, Kaiyo tugs on my sleeve, breaking my concentration. "Hey, what's up? You look like you've seen a ghost, only you didn't like it."

I point at the yard. "Ravens," is all I manage to say.

"Yeah, I know, what's with you and—" Then she turns and sees the birds circling for herself. "Oh…well, _that's_ legitimately creepy." She waves to me. "Come on, let's check it out."

"Check it out?" I repeat, following reluctantly, and only because I figure now would be a _really_ bad time to split up.

"Yeah," says the dhampir girl. "Birds don't behave like this, but there are some enchantments or curses that can manipulate lower animals. If it's something powerful enough to enslave a whole flock of ravens, it could at least be a clue as to what brought the Fog here in the first place…and it could also be sorta dangerous to leave around for one of the survivors to run into."

I nod and tuck my shotgun away in favor of my AK-47. If I'm going up against an unknown supernatural evil, I want to do it using the weapon I'm most familiar and comfortable with—and the one most likely to keep me alive. I follow Kaiyo around the side of the house to the sunlit back yard, where the whole flock of ravens circles in eerie silence. Some fly clockwise, some counter-clockwise. In the center of the circle, the raven I injured is perched on a red seesaw set with two other ravens. Like their circling fellows, the ravens in the center regard us silently. Kaiyo and I stand there in the patch of sunlight, surveying the scene for a moment. I keep my weapon shouldered, but I see nothing. "Any idea what's causing them to behave like this?" I ask.

Kaiyo shakes her head. "Only I bet it isn't the seesaw. We'll need to get closer to be sure though."

"I don't know if we can get through," I say. The flock is circling pretty near the ground, six feet up at most, and while getting hit by a flying bird probably wouldn't cause any permanent damage to either of us it's still something I'd rather avoid, especially in the case of eerily enchanted birds. Still, if there's no other way… "It's your call," I say.

Kaiyo nods, waits for an opening, and then dashes into the circle. She's surprisingly fast, but the opening was not as large as she needed it to be. One bird almost hits her, but it smoothly pirouettes away at the last second before blending seamlessly into the circling flock once more. Seeing this, I step experimentally forward. Birds careen past on either side, inches away, but none of them hit me. Not so much as a feather brushes my coat as the ravens circle in awful silence. I take two more steps forward until I, like Kaiyo, am fully inside the uncanny circle, with silent black birds wheeling by all around us.

"Alright…now what?" I ask, eyeing the ravens surrounding us, then the three in the center who stare at us in silence.

"There's something here," Kaiyo says. "I can feel it. Can't you?"

I nod slowly. Now that she mentions it I do seem to feel a buzzing in the back of my brain. I try to determine where it's coming from, listening as if it were a real noise, but it seems to arise from all around us: from the circling ravens, and from the three at the seesaw. "I can feel the ravens," I say.

"It's not the ravens," says Kaiyo. "They're no more in control of their own actions right now than the zombies are. Something else is controlling them, and it's here, right here in this circle with us."

"I don't see anything," I say, sweeping my rifle across the inside of the circle. Red orange leaves crackle under my sneakers as I slowly cross the autumn-brown lawn. "The only thing in here with us is the seesaw—and those three birds."

"Let's take a closer look," says Kaiyo. One of her hands has closed around that razor-blade pendant of hers while the other hovers over her colorful elementalism focus. The fact that _she_ is uneasy makes me very, very afraid, but I lock down on my terror and step forward with her, staying a pace behind to cover her with my assault rifle.

The ravens in the center regard us with empty eyes. They perch on the seesaw, completely still, unnaturally silent, until Kaiyo is within arm's reach of them. Then, in unison those three ravens and every raven in the circle gives a single resounding croak. At that signal, the three ravens in the center scatter and the whole flock does as well, with every raven flying to perch on the house, fence, or trees that surround the yard. All of them face inward, regarding us with silent menace.

"Hmmm…well, the good news is that I can now sense that it's definitely not the seesaw," Kaiyo says. Her red eyes dart nervously over the flock of ravens.

"I can sense that too," I say. The buzzing in my brain still lacks clear direction, but it now seems to be pointing only at the perching birds at the edges of the circle. "So what's the bad news?"

"That the controlling force seems to be something that's embedded itself into the ravens themselves," says Kaiyo. "And I think I know what it is…"

Before she can clarify, all the ravens around us suddenly start screeching at once. Then they take wing and dive straight for us, beaks and talons outstretched. I fire a short burst as they dive, but there's no way I can take down more than a handful of them.

"Duck!" Kaiyo says and tackles me, forcing me to the ground with unexpected strength. Then she rips her right hand down off the razor blade and opens it. Tendrils of blood shoot out from her palm and form a pulsating scarlet dome over us. Droplets spray out from the surface as beaks and talons glance off the blood shield. Soon blood is raining down everywhere inside and the shield is little more than a thin red bubble. I duck and cover my face with my arms in an effort to protect myself. In the back of my brain, the buzzing goes mad.

Then, suddenly, it's over. The rain of droplets and the harsh cries of the birds are gone. I grab Kaiyo's hand and help her to her feet. Her palm is still cut and she looks a little pale, but she gives me a reassuring smile. I seem to be unharmed as well, though I can see a tiny spot of blood in the lower corner of the left lens of my glasses. I know it'll drive me crazy till I have a chance to wash it off properly. I don't dare try here for fear of smudging them.

Instead, I kneel to retrieve my rifle, and that's when I see it, perched on the seesaw as if were just another raven—but it is no raven! It's a man-shaped figure wearing a black leather cowl that completely conceals his features. All that's visible beneath his robes are a pair of black-feathered hands, each of which holds a broad short sword with a perpendicular spike at the top, like the Uruk Hai swords from _The Lord of the Rings_—but these are real, and deadly.

I cry out a warning, but the black figure is already in motion. He springs from the seesaw with surprising agility, leaving it motionless in his wake. He slashes both swords at Kaiyo's head, but she leaps away at the last second. Still, she is not quite fast enough. One of the black blades gives her a gash on the side of her neck, but instead of bleeding the cut sends up curls of smoke. She cries out a curse in what I can only assume is Japanese and waves her bleeding right palm in front of her, between her and the figure. A tide of blood flows from the wound and forms a thin red barrier between her and the creature. It slashes into it with a single cut from its swords and the whole thing dissolves into smoke. It steps through, blades swinging. Kaiyo cries out and backflips away.

The thing advances on her again, but by this time I have my rifle. I flip the selector to full auto and spray _anima_ bullets into the figure's chest. Black feathers rain down around it and it staggers, but it does not go down. Instead it turns to me, swords crossed and arms outstretched. "Look out!" Kaiyo shouts, and that's all the warning I get. A swarm of ravens fly out at me from somewhere in the figure's robes. I shield my head with my hands. Talons and sharp beaks jab and tear at me. I feel a few cuts on my fingers, and a couple painful impacts on the back of my head, but the thick army coat protects most of me, as does being so close to the ground. A second later I raise my head to see more than a dozen birds lying broken on the ground around me. The black figure is still standing. It twirls its swords and charges at me. I scramble to my feet, but it's moving too fast!

Suddenly a fireball hits it from the side, staggering it and singing one arm of its cowl. Kaiyo stands to one side, her arms stretched out, her white fangs fully bared in a snarl. She breathing heavily though and very pale. Blood from her cut palm drips into the dead grass and the cut on her neck is smoldering acrid gray smoke. I don't know how long she'll be able to stand, much less fight.

I see the figure in black taking aim at her with its crossed swords and outstretched arms. I know it's about to summon another flurry of suicidal crows, this time at Kaiyo. I can't let that happen, and I have to keep her alive. I flip the switch on my rifle to single-shot and fire into the figure. Feathers puff out from creature's chest as the _anima_ round explodes inside it. I direct the wash of energy to Kaiyo, healing her wounds—or at least, so I hope. All I really know is that I've thrown off the black figure's concentration—and I have to keep him off balance long enough for Kaiyo to recover or we're both dead. I have no illusions about my chances of fighting this thing alone.

I keep firing. Round after round explodes inside the figure's chest—if it _has_ a chest—and it staggers backward. It raises its arms to hit me again with a swarm of ravens, but I put a round through its injured arm, interrupting the spell temporarily. That, as it turns out, is all I need. As the figure struggles to raise its arms again, Kaiyo spreads hers wide and cries voicelessly to the sky. Out of nowhere a giant hammer with a square head as big around as my torso falls from the sky, trailing lightning. It slams into the figure and vanishes in an explosion of electric arcs and lightning bolts. I cry out and jump back, landing hard on my rear. When the smoke clears, there's no trace of the figure, though more than a dozen ravens are winging away to the northeast.

I manage to pick myself up of the ground. I've got some cuts on my fingers, but none of them look too deep. The pecks to the back of my head, while painful, don't appear to have done any real damage either, so I guess my only real loss is my dignity. I look over at Kaiyo and see her standing in the last rays of sunlight. The cuts to her neck and palm are gone and her skin has resumed its healthy, dark tan color. She grins at me. "Wow, you're really powerful!" she says.

"I'm powerful?" I ask in disbelief. "I don't even know what that _was_ that you dropped on that thing. Where'd you get a hammer the size of a person, and how did you control it just now—and where is it?"

Kaiyo shrugs. "Aw, it was nothing. Let's just say Thor is a sweetie and he owes me some favors," she says modestly, though grinning widely enough that I can see the tips of her fangs.

"Thor?! " I repeat. "Thor the superhero, or Thor the Norse god from mythology? And you said he owes you favors?"

Kaiyo holds up a hand to stop the stream of questions, though she's still smiling. "It's not important right now," she says. "And anyway, it's not nearly as impressive as what you did. Those blades are powerfully cursed. There's no way I could have healed that cut on my own: at least not without a few hours to prepare the right spell—but you healed it in seconds with a simple energy leech spell. That takes a _lot_ of raw potential."

"Oh…um, thanks," I say, not sure how to respond. I've never been good at taking a compliment, even a simple one, and to have the most powerful and dangerous person I know (who just called down a giant hammer from the sky, no less) tell me I'm stronger than they are…I'm not sure what to _do_ with that knowledge. I'm not even sure I want to have it.

Instead, I decide to shift my focus to the battlefield around us. The broken bodies of ravens litter the yard. A few of them are still alive, struggling to limp or fly away though they're obviously no longer capable of doing so. I don't think they're a threat anymore, but I can't stand to see them suffering. I bite my lip and shoulder my rifle taking careful aim. My fingers are still bloody and raw, but I don't want to profit from these kills—I just want to put the wounded birds out of their misery. I focus my mind on guiding the bullets to their targets and put down the birds with instantly lethal headshots. When all the birds are still, I look back to Kaiyo, who's watching me approvingly. "What, no comments on how I'm a _typical Templar_ this time?" I ask, trying to lighten my somber mood. After all, we did just win.

"Well, maybe you _are_ a typical Templar, but I think you did the right thing," Kaiyo says. "Those birds wouldn't have lasted the night and you made sure their death was quick, at least. It's the best we can do under the circumstances."

I look back at the place where I last saw the black figure that enslaved the ravens. There's no trace of it now, and where it stood there's now a steaming crater with sides edged in newly-formed glass. "At least they died free," I say.

"Free?" Kaiyo asks, stepping up beside me. "Oh, wait! I get it! You're not very experienced, so you think we actually killed the Revenant, don't you?"

"The what?"

"Revenant," Kaiyo explains. "It's a sort of undead with very powerful dark magic."

"Like a zombie?" There didn't seem to be any resemblance between the black thing that attacked us here and the zombies that shamble around town.

"Not really," she says. "It's more like an evil spirit, only it used to be human. It's sort of like a fragment of the soul of someone who did something very, very bad, and like a soul it's immortal."

"Well at least we destroyed the body," I say. "That ought to count for something." Humans have souls, and killing our bodies _certainly_ counts for something!

"Not hardly," says Kaiyo. "A few ravens got away, and right now _every_ raven in Kingsmouth is a body for the Revenant, one it can combine at will into a full-sized body like this one. And even if we killed every single raven in town, it would probably still get away. Revenants aren't really ghosts, so they can't exist in our world without bodies, but they can use any sort of carrion creature for a body: from ravens to rats, all the way down to worms!"

"So…it's still out there, and it's impossible to kill," I say, and hang my head. "Great. I guess we should just go back to the barricades and warn everybody to watch out for ravens." _As if they don't already have enough to worry about, with the zombie apocalypse and all_.

"I didn't say they were _impossible_ to kill: just really, really difficult," Kaiyo clarifies. "As for going back, well, we could do that...or…"

"Or what?" I ask, looking up.

"Or we could go after it and take it out: Templar-style!" she says. "You've given us the key."

"I did?" I think back over what I've done. "By shooting at ravens?"

Kaiyo shakes her head. "No, silly! I already said if we killed them all, the Revenant would still get away. The key is Rogêt-_san_'s prophesy!"

"I didn't give you that," I say, unwilling to take credit for something I didn't have any part in. "She gave it, and you were the one who took me to see her."

"Okay, fine, but you were still the first one who started taking it seriously—and in the right way," Kaiyo insists. "Remember what the prophesy told us to look for first? Ravens! You figured that out!"

"Actually, I think it was just a warning against ravens, not a list of things we should be looking for," I say.

"Whatever," says Kaiyo. "She clearly has some fairly hefty prophetic powers, as I looked it up in my book." She gestures to the huge leather tome peeking out of her anime-bunny backpack. "The visions that come with that kind of power are rarely purely descriptive. They're also _pro_scriptive too." I give her a surprised look and she pauses, then says, somewhat sheepishly, "That means they don't just tell us what's going to happen, they also tell us what we should do about it. Sorry about the big words"

"I know what the words mean," I say. "I just…well I didn't expect them, coming from someone other than my English lit professors." _My **former** English lit professors_, I think ruefully, for I have no idea whether I'll ever be able to study under them again or even finish my degree. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised though," I say to Kaiyo, a little sheepish myself. "I should have expected it from the girl who's studied magic all her life and carries an encyclopedia around all the time."

"Oh, my book here is _more_ than an encyclopedia! He's _many_ things," says Kaiyo, pulling her backpack around so she can stroke the book's spine. She leans close and whispers to me, "I even have a whole section devoted to my favorite manga!"

I draw back a little, not sure whether to be amused or uncomfortable. "Um, I'm not sure how to respond to that," I say honestly.

"That's okay," she says, returning her backpack to its place with a smug grin. "You can just say it's awesome."

"I'm sure it is," I say, "but shouldn't we be figuring out the next part of the prophesy, so we can stop the Revenant before nightfall?" Already the rays of sunlight are beginning to fade from our backyard battlefield.

"Oh, right! You're not a dhampir! Sorry!" Kaiyo bows an apology and then bites her lower lip thoughtfully with one fang. "Okay, so the first thing in the prophesy was creepy ravens, right?"

"Right," I say.

"And next there was raven _attacks_, and we got those," says Kaiyo. "Check?" She moves her hand as if to mark an item off an imaginary list.

"Check," I say, holding up a cut knuckle. The bleeding's stopped and the cut wasn't very deep, but it still hurts.

"And after that there was—what—_black feathers in the grass_?"

I look around us, at the raven feathers that liter the dead grass in the back yard. "Major check," I say.

"Good! Then we're well on our way!" Kaiyo declares optimistically. "What's the next one?"

I think back to the prophesy, trying to remember the exact words Rogêt said. "Papers in the park," I say.

"Great!" She looks around the side of the house to Arkham Avenue, which is shrouded in long shadows. "Any idea where the park is?"

I dig out my map and study it. I spot a drawing of a swingset and what looks like a large round pool. "It looks like there's a park between King's Court and Angell Street," I say. "It should be just down the Avenue." I point to the northeast, the same direction the fleeing crows went.

"Great!" says Kaiyo, taking the lead. "We get there and find some newspapers, and then do something with roses in a pool, and we're done!" She cocked her head. "No idea how that's supposed to help us against a Revenant, but we won't know until we get there. Come on!" She hurries into the street and I have little choice but to follow.

We find no zombies on our way to the park. I wonder if perhaps the presence of the Revenant disturbs them as much as it does me. Certainly there seems to be no real basis for kinship between the two kinds of undead. I file the question away for later, letting myself be grateful now for clear streets. Dusk is fast approaching as the ominous fog blots out the last sunlight. Automatic streetlights flicker on, but their illumination is hardly enough to guard against a sudden ambush. Fortunately as the day wanes Kaiyo's confidence seems to grow. I remember Dan said she'd be stronger at night, and I hope that's the case. I'm not sure how well I'll be able to shoot at our black-hooded opponent once full darkness falls.

Fortunately, we reach the park well before then. Unfortunately, the Revenant is waiting for us, in the form of what must be every raven in town. There are well over a hundred of them, perching silently on trees, on metal fence posts, park benches, the swingset, and around the concrete rim of the circular pool at the center of the park. They all stand at attention in a circle, staring inward at a trio of crows hovering in a tight circle around the very center of the pool.

"Okay, this is bad," I say quietly.

"Yeah, I'm definitely filing it away under _not good_," says Kaiyo. "I guess the Revenant was looking forward to round two as well. We need to find that newspaper quickly."

"I'm still not sure how a newspaper is going to solve this," I say. Nevertheless, Rogêt did say the _papers_ would be _in the park_, so we creep past the fence and begin searching. The Ravens ignore us, totally under the Revenant's thrall.

Suddenly Kaiyo makes a half-suppressed excited squeal and tugs on my sleeve. "Papers in the park!" she whispers, pointing toward the edge of the concrete pool. There in a pool of light cast by a streetlamp a body lays, mangled beyond recognition, and in its hands a few yellowed papers, like pages torn out of an old book. "That's got to be it! I'm sure of it!" she says.

"Think you can get it without getting the Revenant's attention?" I ask, waving my gun at all the stock-still ravens perched mere feet from the body.

"I think so," says Kaiyo. "Revenants can be extremely intelligent. It knows we're hunting it, and it believes this is a fight it can win—that and it enjoys the suffering it inflicts in fighting. It'll wait for one of us to challenge it, and I'm pretty sure I can avoid that."

I nod. "Okay, I'll cover you." I raise my rifle and watch the ravens carefully as Kaiyo tip-toes up to the body, snatches the yellowed pages out of its hand, and tip-toes back. None of the birds acknowledge her presence with so much as a blink.

A moment later, Kaiyo is back beside me and waves the papers triumphantly. "This _is_ it, look!" She shows me the top page, which shows a five-pointed star in a circle, with a bunch of runes at the bottom of the page. "These are instructions from an old spellbook for binding and banishing malevolent spirits—like the Revenant!"

"Great!" I say. "What do we need?"

"Nothing I don't have, I think," says Kaiyo, looking over the rune-covered pages. "The most of the reagents are pretty standard things I've got here in my backpack or can find around the park. There's a few outdated ones, like dragon's blood, but I should be able to find a substitute easily enough. The only thing we're gonna need is a large circular area in which to perform the binding."

"Would the pool work? It's circular," I say.

Kaiyo nods. "Brilliant! Now all we need is for the Revenant to cooperate."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the binding will only work if the Revenant is in full bodily form—like when we fought it earlier—and if it stays within the binding circle for the entire ritual," says Kaiyo. She frowns. "That's gonna be the difficult part. It won't assume full bodily form unless it's going to fight someone, and in order to keep it that way they'd have to keep fighting it in the pool until the spell is complete."

I look at the cement pool. I can see the bottom in the light from the streetlamps, so it must not be very deep, which means that the fight Kaiyo's talking about is at least physically possible, if not exactly survivable. "So I guess the question is which one of us wants to go a few rounds with the Revenant." I take a deep breath to calm myself. I know what the answer has to be. "I'll do it," I say.

"You're sure?" Kaiyo says, looking concerned.

I nod. "There's no other way," I say. "There's no time for you to teach me everything I'd need to know to perform the binding and banishment spell. You're the only one who can do that, which leaves me to fight the Revenant." I square my shoulders. "Are you ready?"

Kaiyo nods silently, clutching the papers in her hand.

"Then let's get this over with," I say. I shoulder my weapon and march forward, eyes fixed on the three ravens circling in the center of the pool. Like the ravens on the seesaw earlier, that's the point the Revenant wants us to reach in order to challenge it—and that's the point where I want to keep it during our fight. I watch Kaiyo take up position by the pool's edge, opening up her backpack to retrieve various vials and pouches. Then I step through the ring of silent ravens and into the pool. The water is cold and it fills my sneakers and soaks through my jeans and socks instantly. It's only about a foot deep, but it's still enough that splashing loudly through it slows me down. The bottom, though even, is also slick with pond scum and covered in what must be a couple hundred dollars in loose change. I'm going to have to be very careful just crossing this pool, much less fighting an undead monstrosity in it. I pause, praying earnestly for strength and divine protection. Then I cross the last few yards to the center of the pool.

The three ravens scatter, then all of them take wing. They come diving straight for me. I leap aside, or try to. My foot slips on the wet coins at the bottom of the fountain and I fall sideways into the water. I flail my arms, trying desperately to get back up, coughing and choking on rancid water. I can hear the buzzing at the back of my brain. The Revenant is here!

I splash up to the surface, managing somehow to maintain my grip on my rifle. I remember how the Revenant attacked Kaiyo from behind and I turn quickly, raising my rifle. I can't see! My glasses are completely covered in water, and all my clothes are soaked. In desperation, I throw them off. Everything is blurry now, but I can make out the shapes well enough. The Revenant is there, perching on the surface of the water. It springs at me, blades outstretched. I reach up and pull the trigger on my grenade launcher, firing at point-blank range. The blue ball of light explodes right in front of me, but it doesn't hurt me. The Revenant is another matter. It screeches, pulling against wires of blue light trying to drag it down. I use the opportunity to splash away through the water. I fire quick bursts into the creature as I do so. It flinches, feathers flying from its torso, then it begins spinning its swords in its hands, slicing through the blue threads holding it in place, dissolving them into smoke. I try to slow it down with a long burst on full-auto, but it is already free and the shots merely cause it to stagger. Then it leaps to one side dodging my shots, and raises its arms with swords crossed. I know what's coming, but I don't have time to stop it or get out of the way.

The Revenant summons a swarm of ravens that fly straight at me. I fire full-auto into them, felling maybe a dozen birds while the rest scatter, only to attack me from all sides. Two hit my right leg, talons tearing through the fabric. A third slams into the left side of my face. I fall down, dazed. The water brings me back to my senses. I struggle out of it. I can feel the stagnant water burning in the cuts to my leg and the other one I can feel on my cheek.

The Revenant spins its swords and advances on me. I fire into it, single explosive shots, using the energy to heal myself. I can feel the cuts tingling, closing, but the Revenant is getting closer. My shots are only slowing him down. Out of the corner of my eye I see Kaiyo running around the circle, frantically placing reagents at the points of an improvised five-cornered star. She's on the third point, only halfway through. Somehow I have to keep this thing fighting me—and I have to stay alive!

It's on top of me then, black swords swinging. I duck under the first swing and block the second with the body of my rifle. It catches the rifle with the perpendicular point of its blade and tears it out of my grip, sending it splashing into the pool. Then it catches me in the right arm with a vicious backswing that sends me spinning away. I scream at the pain. The buzzing in my mind goes mad. I feel like the bees are on fire. My arm feels like it was cut to the bone by that blow! The cursed blade didn't leave a mark on my coat, but I know my skin underneath must be a different story. Gray smoke curls out from under my sleeve. I search for my rifle, but I can't find it in the shimmering waters—and without it I have no way to heal myself.

The Revenant flourishes its black blades and moves toward me, evidently in no hurry to finish me off. Kaiyo looks at me, her hand on her pendant, ready to assist, but I shake my head. Her spell is the only hope we have of defeating this thing. She moves on to the fourth point, and I know I have to keep this battle going a little longer.

I unzip my coat and go for one of my pistols with my left hand, my only good hand at this point. Unfortunately, I'm right handed, so it's not _very_ good. I fire at the Revenant, focusing on trying to sap its strength. It doesn't slow or speed up a bit, contemptuously keeping the same pace through the steady hail of _anima_ bullets. I try to back away, but my feet bump into the edge of the pool. I can't go any further, or this will all be for nothing.

Across from me, I see Kaiyo frantically arranging the reagents for the spell at the fifth point. I know she only needs a few more seconds. I desperately hope that whatever this spell does, it's instant. I point my pistol at the Revenant's head and squeeze off shots as fast as I can. Bullet after bullet slams home, raining black feathers into the pool, but still the Revenant does not slow down. Then it reaches me. It swings a sword at my good arm. It's slower, weaker, but so am I and with a blade like that, it doesn't matter. The black sword rakes down my arm and knocks the pistol from my hand. I scream. It feels like my left arm is on fire from my elbow to my wrist, and from all the smoke pouring out of the sleeve, it looks like it may well be. I feel myself falling backwards, out of the pool, but I know that if I do the Revenant will come after me. The spell will fail. I will die, and it will all be for nothing. The black thing will be free to kill Kaiyo next, then stalk and kill the others at will.

I decide that if I'm going to die, my death will count for something. I force myself to fall forward instead, into the Revenant. It staggers under my weight, then pushes me aside. As I tumble away it swings both swords at my midsection, and I have no way to defend myself. I feel the cursed metal rip through me. I see smoke billowing up from my open coat. I fall into the water and hit my head on the concrete edge of the pool. I know that's bad, but somehow, I don't feel it. Somehow, I know that's worse. All I can hear is the mad buzzing in my brain, which seems loud enough now to shatter my skull. If that's what it's going to do, I wish it would get it over with.

My head lulls to one side, no longer under my ability to control. I can still see, though, through the clouds of acrid smoke pouring from my body. I see Kaiyo standing up by the fifth point, screaming something. I can't hear anything but the buzzing, though, and the loss of my glasses makes it hard to see. But it looks like her fangs are bared in a snarl and her fingernails seem to have become claws: talons several inches long. The Revenant turns to engage her, moving more slowly than usual, but then the dhampir girl shouts one final command to the heavens and a five pointed star-outlined one in white, appears on the surface of the water. The Revenant is trapped in the center. It shrieks. The white pattern touches his cloak, then grows up the leather like a live thing. Behind it, the leather cracks, dissolves. Feathers burst out, followed by ravens fleeing for their lives. The Revenant itself remains in place, twisting, writing, until it's nothing but a tormented shadow clutching cursed black blades. Finally those too dissolve and the black shadow implodes, sending a shockwave across the water and through the deserted park.

The next thing I know, Kaiyo is kneeling next to me. Her face isn't distorted by rage anymore, but by concern. She cradles my head in her hands, turning my face toward hers. I know she must be shouting at me, but I can barely hear her above the buzzing. "Chris! Chris, please say something!"

"D-did we get the…R-revenant?" I manage to say. Speaking is slow and painful. I know it shouldn't be.

"Yes! You did it, Chris!" Kaiyo says, tears streaming down her cheeks. "You kept it busy long enough for the spell to do its job. Now the Revenant is gone and the ravens are free. The curse on your wounds is fading too. I'll be able to heal you in a few minutes. You just have to hold on…please!"

I manage to look down. My coat and shirt have been pulled open, exposing my abdomen. Blood flows down and swirls out in great clouds from a pair of cuts to my torso, one just below my ribcage, the other just above. More red swirls out of my left hand sleeve, joined by a rivulet from my right. "That's…a lot of blood…," I say, somewhat impressed that I'm able to say or think anything at this point.

"Yes…well, I'm a blood mage, so once the curse fully loses its power I should be able to use it…" Kaiyo's voice trails off into sobs. Then she says, "I'm sorry, Chris! So, so sorry!"

I don't need to ask what she's apologizing for. I don't know much about anatomy, but I know that there's not that much blood in a human body to start with, and mine is already staining the water over more than a quarter of the pool, spreading quickly like a great crimson blossom. If Kaiyo has to wait a few more minutes to treat my wounds, she'll be a few minutes too late. "I'm…not gonna make it," I say. It's a statement, not a question.

She shakes her head, biting down on her lower lip hard enough to draw blood.

"Red blossoms in the pool," I manage, though my speech is beginning to slur. My lips and tongue feel fat, and every part of me feels a deathly chill, even though I seem to be sweating profusely. "It's…the last part…of the prophesy…"

"No!" Kaiyo slams her fist into the concrete hard enough to crack it, though she seems uninjured by the contact. "It didn't say _anything_ about you dying! What about the prophesy she gave to you? What about the rising darkness! The choices!"

"I guess you'll…have to…sort it out…without me…" I say. Each word is a struggle, and I decide not to say anything more. I simply smile at her. She's crying, but she's safe now. The whole town is safe, at least from the Revenant. It was the least I could do. The only thing, it seems, that I could do…and it's not half bad for a simple English lit major.

With that thought, my eyes drift closed. Sensation fades away to nothing. I am left alone with the buzzing…

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> The end! Just kidding! I promise never to end a story like that. A chapter, on the other hand...hehehe!

"The Raven" is one of my favorite missions in The Secret World. In my opinion, it's an excellent example of the "tension and release" cycle that's so important in good horror (look it up on Extra Credits if you're curious). It was the only mission that had me jumping out of my chair with fright the first time I played it (several have had me jumping out of my chair in frustration, like *cough-cough* "That'll Leave a Mark"—but that's another story!). The mission begins with the player being given a simple task "search for ravens." Upon finding the first raven (located where the first raven was found in the story, but acting like a normal bird), the bird flies away and the task changes to a timed mission to "follow the raven." This leads the player to two more ravens who, again fly off and you are tasked to track down. The player finds them in a back yard surrounded by lots of unnaturally-circling ravens, which immediately caused me to question, "What's going on here?" The game provides no answer however, and it _is_ a timed task, so the player will try to ignore the uncanny feeling of unease and go ahead and reach that last group of ravens by the seesaws. At which point, all the ravens fly off. The player has about enough time to wonder, "Well, huh, what am I supposed to do now?" Before the Revenant spawns directly behind them (no matter which direction you turn, it _will_ be behind you) and blasts them with a fairly powerful (for that stage of the game) column AoE attack, before going to town on them with its blades. It's attacks are not all that powerful and it doesn't take to long before the Revenant despawns and combat ends, but it is certainly enough to give players a good scare. At least, it gave me a good scare, and I now feel a little tingle of dread whenever I see circling crows in the game. There are other places where players can run into revenants on Solomon Island, but I don't think they match the fright of the first encounter.

Having said all that, I did change some things about the mission. First of all, there's nothing odd about the ravens' behavior except their formation of circles (both flying and, at the end, perching), but I wanted to make it clear from the outset that there was something sinister going on with these ravens in Kingsmouth. Second, the game has the player track the revenant through three flying-circle sequences like the first one, following him through the woods and back into town before trapping him in the pool, and picking up a revenant feather each time to use as a reagent in the final spell (which merely forces the revenant to spawn in the pool and stay there until the player either kills it or gets far enough away from the pool to cause it to despawn). I cut these cycles out as redundant in the story. For similar reasons, I cut out the zombie encounters a player would normally have on their way from the backyard to the park. I also added three ravens to the center of the pool in the last battle, to serve as a trigger point for the Revenant's spawn and to show continuity with the first attack. For dramatic reasons, I also decided to force Kaiyo to complete all five points of the star before binding the Revenant, rather than the three the player must puzzle out.

Finally, of course, the last battle with the Revenant is not very likely to kill a player character of appropriate level. Honestly having the Revenant kill Chris didn't occur to me until halfway through the battle, when she seemed to be losing pretty badly and getting her out alive was looking like a pretty hefty challenge. To be honest, I've been planning on killing Chris for several chapters now in order to further develop her character (not contradictory, I swear!). This just gave me a good, meaningful, and hopefully believable way for her to die. Her symptoms, at the end, are as faithful as I could be to someone suffering from fatal blood loss.

Concerning other matters...Ravens and crows are different species. Ravens are larger and have typically deeper calls. Since ravens are generally found in the countryside, most people are more used to seeing crows. In _The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers_, the Uruk Hai—Saruman's orcs—carry special scimitars with straight, flat blades with a perpendicular point. The Revenant's swords look like miniature versions of these. I'm not sure if the resemblance is deliberate, but it was the only thing that occurred to my mind and I figured Chris would be the same (she may know guns, but not swords). The Revenant's attacks _are_ cursed in game, but the only effect this has on players is for them to take moderate damage over time. In the story I decided to make it more dramatic. Also, in order to avoid Chris having to face yet another wardrobe change, I decided to allow the swords to strike through clothing (which would, incidently, make them impossible to stop with armor...fitting for a disease-based monster).

Kaiyo's combination of moves in the first fight can actually be dangerous, and I don't recommend it. Angelic Aegis is a strong barrier, as mentioned before, and can be cast without building up magic counters, but when you do so you take off a chunk of your own health and incur Blood Sacrifice—a substantial damage-over-time effect on yourself. If the enemy can't get through your barrier, that's no problem, but if they can then the damage-over-time from Blood Sacrifice can conspire with the damage from their attacks to put you in a bad situation (I've almost gotten poor Kaiyo's in-game doppelganger killed a couple times like this). If you can't kill off the enemy quickly, I find the only good solution is to spam Blood Shield (her second move) until either the Blood Sacrifice counter runs out or until you can cast Angelic Aegis again from magic resources rather than your own health. What I would recommend instead is to start by spamming Blood Shield before the fight, then you can cast Angelic Aegis at the beginning for free, giving you a nice barrier to protect you while you go on the offensive. Incidentally, yes, that finishing move she does is an actual elementalism skill called "Thor's Hammer"...and it is _awesome!_

Regarding Chris' relative power, I think the game's pretty consistent as portraying the player as someone with great untapped potential, essentially limited mostly by their unfamiliarity with their magic. I'm trying to keep that story in mind as I write Chris' adventures.

On a completely unrelated note, Kaiyo needs a _name_ for her book. I am accepting suggestions.

And now, for a confession from the previous chapter. Madame Rogêt's prophesy was modified. Specifically, I added the lines about black feathers in the grass, pages in the park, and red blossoms in the pool. I did this so that the characters would have some clues to follow, and also so that I could sneak in some foreshadowing. Also the exact words were _Pages in the park_, but I'm okay with Chris' slight misremembering.


End file.
